The Best Kept Secrets
by ElizaKay
Summary: Whenever she asked questions about why an important decision was made, she would never get a straight answer. Nine times out of ten it was always answered with 'It is necessary.' and was never elaborated on any further. She learned to accept this as she grew older until one day her whole world was turned upside down and took her to places she never thought of for answers.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any characters from the series.

Enjoy!

A loud crash followed by screams could be heard throughout the stone walls of the village. It was such a daily occurrence that many people rarely paid any attention to it. Well those who had nothing to worry about didn't pay attention to it.

The screams belonged to families who were being executed due to the so called Bloodline wars. In other villages, where these bloodlines would be held closely to the village due to their usefulness, here they were labeled as traitors. They received the blame for the loss of the last war, because they were not able to successfully aid the village of Kirigakure in winning the war.

Those who had kekkai genkai did their best to hide. Not show what they were capable of in the hopes that their family would live another day. Those citizens, ninjas and civilians alike, that tried to escape and get to one of the other hidden villages, whether they had a bloodline or not, were executed on spot. There were some, though, who had been careful of their kekkai genkais from the start. They weary of what others would think if they had discovered what they truly held within.

Satsuki moved to this village when she was very little. Her father said that she was only a few months old when they made the long trek from a large a proud ninja village to come and live here. He never did explain why they came only stating that it was 'necessary' to protect those that we loved. 'It is necessary'. It was her father's favourite phrase, his go-to way to end any conversation, and it demanded obedience whenever he used it. It was something that she learned while she young was a very important sometimes unexplained order that she had to follow, although she did not know why.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Satsuki," a tall figure with spiky silver hair knocked on the doorframe of the small room as he continued through the room to tap on the shoulder of a small child sitting at a desk seemingly working on something important.

"Yes, daddy?" the little girl dropped her pencil on the desk and turned around, her large smile beaming as she looked up at her father.

"It is time for you to start learning to become a ninja. Come." The girl's father was straight to the point and turned around to lead her back out of the room.

The girl had a confused look on her face as she scrambled off of her chair and scurried off after her father. "But daddy, why?" The older gentleman kept walking and simply looked over his shoulder and stated "Keep up." He led her out of the house to their large fenced in backyard. He grabbed a soccer ball out of a chest by the backdoor and set it on the ground.

Satsuki just stared at the ball, curious as to how this had anything to do with becoming a ninja, when suddenly the ball went sailing towards her head. She sloppily turned on her heel falling on her bottom looking towards her father with a scared look on her face. "What was that?!" She shouted as she studied the face of her father it remaining impassive, as he picked the soccer ball back up that had rolled back to his feet.

"Again." Was all he said as he threw the ball a second time, not even waiting for her to get off the floor. This continued for the next two hours, the girls' father continuously throwing the ball and more often than not hitting the girl as she tried to dodge.

As the second hour came to a close, the small child was on the verge of tears as she got hit with the soccer ball once again. "DADDY WHY?!" The girl stamped her foot on the ground as she crossed her arms. "You're not even a ninja! Why do I have to learn to be one?!" She sniffed loudly as she ran the back of her hand across her nose.

Her father sighed and let his shoulders sag. "It is necessary." He put the ball back in the chest by the door as he headed inside. He looked over his shoulder at his daughter who had just reached four years old earlier that week. She was the spitting image of him, but with her arms crossed and the pout across her face she showed just how much of her personality she got from her mother. She ran towards him and grabbed his hand opening her mouth as if to ask another question. Her father stopped her short and led her inside saying "No more questions darling. Now let's go eat dinner."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Daddy, why can't I leave the house?" Satsuki questioned looking up at her father with wide eyes.

Her father kneeled down in front of her, reaching his hands out to touch her cheeks, his thumb gently stroking the bright red triangles that marked her pale face. "It's because you're special darling." His voice was full of admiration as he looked into her coal black eyes.

"But, I want to go outside and play with the other kids!" a small pout crossed her lips as she crossed her arms across her chest.

Her father feigned being hurt and his had instantly recoiled back to grab his chest. "You don't want to play with me anymore?" He smiled a toothy grin at her as she ran up to give him a hug.

"It's not that daddy, it's just, I want to go out and do things like the other kids!" She buried her head in his chest.

There was a loud sigh that could be heard echoing through the halls of their small house. "You can't." Satsuki instinctively yanked her head back to glare at her father. "You won't understand my reasons now, but you will. It is necessary." Satsuki's shoulders fell and she dropped her gaze to the floor. "Come-on pup," her father slowly picked himself up off the floor and held his hand out to his daughter. "It's time for more training."

"Yes daddy." She stood up and then walked past her father, jamming her hands in her pockets. Her father sighed and followed her grabbing a bag of small rubber balls by the backdoor as he went.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brightly coloured lights danced around the small house that Satsuki and her father called home. There was a small Christmas tree in the corner of the house with several small boxes underneath, and Satsuki's father had his limber frame stretched uncomfortable over an armchair as he thought about several of the presents that he had meticulously wrapped for his little cub. It terrified him to no end, and it made him worry about what this would mean for the future, but he knew that it had to be done. He wouldn't be able to shelter her forever-she was too much like her mother for that to be an option.

She had been growing in her training like a fish to water, and she could now dodge kitchen knives as if they were the soccer balls that she had first started to learn dodging with. She had eventually turned it into a game, much to her father's chagrin, trying to see how many objects she could dodge with her eyes closed. The first time she attempted the little 'game' of hers resulted in a rather deep gash to her shoulder due to a very pesky kitchen knife, but she took it like a champ. She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath and growled 'Keep going.' He didn't keep throwing the objects though and stepped forward towards his little princess. 'Dad,' he remembered her saying, 'If this was a mission, I would not let a wound from a kunai stop me. Keep going.' And so he did.

It had been just over two years since he had started training her. The bulk of her training had been spent on learning to dodge projectiles and speed training, preparing her for the dreaded day that he hoped would never come but knew would come sooner than he liked.

He shifted his spot in his chair as his sensitive ears picked up the small sound of blankets rustling in the next room as his small charge woke up. He allowed himself one last long sigh as he steeled him against what would happen that morning as a result of Satsuki opening her presents. 'It is necessary' he whispered to himself as he picked himself up out of his chair and walked towards his little silver haired princess who was sleepily walking down the hallway rubbing her eyes.

"Happy Christmas pup!" he smiled down at Satsuki, enjoying the sudden realization that spread across her face as she remembered what day it was.

"That's right! It's Christmas!" Satsuki shouted as she ran past her father as she tried to run straight to the living room, only to find herself suddenly blocked by her father. "You're no fun! How do you always do that?" She crossed her arms and frowned up at her father who just chuckled at her.

"It's a secret that you'll learn when you're older. Now come. Breakfast first, then presents!" Breakfast was never a quite ordeal in their house. It consisted of lots of loud laughs and things being dropped as the duo 'helped' each other out. Today was no different and it ended in a game of catch using eggs as the ball, only ending their game when an egg 'accidently' hit the side of Satsuki's head.

"EW!" She giggled. "That's….yolky!" Satsuki snorted at her own pun as her father rolled his eyes.

"Now you have to go wash up," He chuckled. "Go do that and I'll finish up here. I'll be done with breakfast by the time you're done."

A half hour later found Satsuki and her father sitting on the floor in their living room with two small piles of presents in front of them. They went to work opening their presents one at a time and making small comments to each other about how much they liked them until they got towards the end. Satsuki had three boxes in front of her while her father's pile had run out.

"Keep going," he urged her.

Satsuki picked up the largest of the three boxes and slowly opened it up, pulling the contents of the box out. It was a long black trench coat with a deep hood. She put her arms through the sleeves and watched in amazement as the coat slowly began to shrink down to her size. Her smile chased her cheeks to her eyebrows as she started exploring different parts of the trench coat, her small hands find pockets after pockets hidden in different locations on the jacket. "Thank you! I love it!" she grinned at her father and he motioned her to open the next present.

The next present was smaller than the first but felt as if it weighed just as much. She ripped the paper open to reveal the cover of a book. It was a rather plain looking book with no discernable picture or title on the front and a lot of pages. Opening the hard cover on the book she looked at a title that was scribbled into the first page with pencil: 'Tales of the Ninja: Henohenomoheji'. She looked up from the title an indescribable look on her face. "Did you write this?"

Her father shook his head and smiled sadly. "No, but a very close friend of mine did. I hope you enjoy it." The answer seemed to satiate the young girl next to him as she eagerly opened the book to the first chapter to start reading it. "Don't forget you have one last present to open." The girl scratched the back of her head sheepishly as she closed the book and reached for the last present.

The last present was a small box, and when she shook it to try and determine the contents and made no notable noise. She carefully peeled the paper back and opened the box to reveal a small stretch of fabric. She gingerly picked it up and held it out to her father with a confused look on her face. "Dad, what is this?!"

Her father laughed loudly, waking up the large Great Dane that was sleeping in the corner of the room. The Great Dane huffed loudly and closed his eyes and went back to sleep. "It's a mask. It's so that," He paused for a moment as if readying himself for what he was about to say "It's so that when you leave the house, no-one will-" He was cut off as he daughter launched herself at him and embraced him in a large hug.

"You mean that I will be able to leave the house?!" She squealed in delight.

"Soon." He carefully grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back so that he could look at her face. "You have one more thing to learn before you can leave the house." A frown instantly adorned her face as she opened her mouth up to oppose, "Satsuki." He stopped her before she could say anything. "You know that everything I do, is for you and to keep you safe. Because it is necessary." She sighed as she cast her eyes towards the ground. "Besides, that mask is designed after the one Henohenomoheji wears in that story, and this technique that you are going to learn is one straight from that book!" he grinned as Satsuki looked back up at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "We can start on it now if you would like." Satsuki was instantly on her feet and heading towards the back door.

Her father waited back for a moment or two and sighed.

"Do you think that was the right choice, Minoru?" a gruff voice spoke out besides him.

Minoru lazily looked back to the corner where his Great Dane was now sitting up in. "No Daisuke," Minoru sighed. "But, it is necessary." The dog snorted and got up stretching his limbs as he headed out towards the backyard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her father had left HOURS ago.

Well, maybe not hours, but it certainly felt like it was hours. He said he was only going out for groceries, and it's not like they really needed anything in the house, but man this was taking FOREVER.

Satsuki had passed annoyed a few minutes back, and was now draped across the large comfy couch in the living room, giving her perfect view of the front door.

"Where do you think he went, Daisuke?" Satsuki asked as the large dog came plodding towards her.

He gingerly climbed up into the chair next to her, and let out a loud huff.

"I know, he went for groceries." Satsuki giggled as Daisuke plopped his head on her stomach. "But he could hurry back after all, I'm HUNGRY." She grabbed ahold of Daisuke's maw and give him a kiss on his nose before going back to staring intently at the door.

She continued staring at the door, and before long she noticed something odd: the decoration on the frame around the door was dancing. Well, not dancing, but definitely moving.

Satsuki quickly sat up, much to Daisuke's annoyance and watched the door with wide eyes as the moving streaks slowly came to a stop and emitted a small glow as the door opened up.

"Here we are! In you go!"

Satsuki watched, in confusion as she saw a kid with bright blonde hair, and an adult with bright red hair walk into the entry way before the living room.

"Shoes go here in the hallway, and your coat can go up on the hook." The red headed adult instructed as he took of his shoes and crossed in to the living room.

"Minoru-san, are you sure it's okay for me to be over here? I don't want to get you into trouble." The blonde-haired boy stated quietly, his shoes still on his feet.

Satsuki continued to monitor the interaction from the side, and watched as the red colour disappeared from her father's hair as he turned back around to the blonde child.

"Of course, I am. That's a silly question to ask." Minoru raised an eyebrow at the young child in front of him as a mischievous grin appeared on his face. "Now I have someone that I want you to meet, and she's an extremely impatient person."

"Daaaaaad!" Satsuki whined, sliding off the couch.

"Satsuki." Minoru only had to say the one word, his tone laced in such a way that showed trouble would be on the way of she continued whining. "I have someone that I want you to meet, come here."

The silver haired child begrudgingly complied and walked closer to the entryway where the blonde boy had just finished taking his coat and shoes off.

"Satsuki, this is Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto, this is my daughter, Satsuki Ha-"

"Why is your hair grey?" Naruto's arms were on his hips, and his eyes scrunched up as he scrutinized the girl in front of him.

Satsuki wrinkled her nose in disgust before replying. "It's not grey, it's silver. What's wrong with your face?"

"My face? There's nothing wrong with mine. What's wrong with yours?" Naruto's arms were now crossed across his chest and he was leaning away from Satsuki.

"Why do you look like cat?" Satsuki rephrased her question, poking her finger into Naruto's cheeks,

"I do NOT look like a cat!" Naruto stomped his foot and sucked his cheek in. "Why do you look like an Inuzuka?"

"A what?" Satsuki shook her head and heatedly responded, "They're birthmarks!"

"Oh." Naruto instantly seemed to cool down. "Mine too."

Satsuki and Naruto stood in the hall staring at each other for a few minutes before Satsuki turned back to her father.

"You said you were going for groceries! Where did he come from?"

"Met him a couple of days ago. I figured he would want some real food compared to that takeout he eats every day. So, I invited him over. Figured you could do with a friend, really." Minoru stretched his arms over his head and turned towards the kitchen.

"You eat take out every day?" an incredulous look appeared on Satsuki's face as she turned back to Naruto.

"Yupp!" Naruto popped the last 'P' in the word as he leisurely strolled into the house. "The people who run it are the only people who are nice to me, not to mention Ichiraku Ramen is the best in the world!"

"Yes, Naruto, but if you're wanting to become a Ninja, then takeout for dinner every night is not going to help you achieve that goal." Minoru shouted from the kitchen.

"You want to be a ninja?" Satsuki asked as she turned to look at the curious boy.

"Yeah! I'm going to be the best ninja ever! I'm going to be Hokage, believe it!" The blonde-haired boy beamed at her sticking his thumb up in the air.

A minute passed as the boy's answer processed through Satsuki's head, before she started laughing loudly.

"I think you're going to have a problem if you want to become Hokage," Satsuki paused as she heard a loud thud in the kitchen. "You're in Kirigakure. You can only be the Mizukage here!"

"And I thought I was messed up," Naruto gave Satsuki an incredulous look. "Teleportation isn't a thing. I was in Konoha when I met your dad, I went to your house in Konoha, and now I'm inside your house in Konoha." Naruto put both his behind his head a let out a small whistle. "Now I know why you have no friends. You're crazy."

An angry look crossed Satsuki's face as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. She looked between Naruto, Daisuke who seemed to almost be laughing, and her father who had just appeared in the doorway with a large goose egg on his head. "I am NOT crazy!"

"Satsuki," Minoru sighed, "You're too smart for your own good." He turned around to go back in to the kitchen, and called over his shoulder, "Let's eat, I'll explain things over food."

Naruto sat at the table, his chopsticks dangling loosely in his hands and a dumbfounded expression on his face.

"I told you I'm not crazy." Satsuki replied smugly from behind her bowl.

"But, but-" Naruto stuttered as emotions flashed across his eyes, before he finally settled on one and he set his chopsticks down and crossed his arms. "If this is your way of kidnapping me, it won't work! I know the Hokage! He'll send his best ninjas after me!"

"I mean you're the one who came willingly with a stranger." Minoru shrugged his shoulders as he continued to eat his meal. "I would barely call it kidnapping if you followed me like a lost puppy."

"Oh. Hehe." Naruto laughed sheepishly as he went back to eating. "So this fujutsu-"

"Fuinjutsu, yes."

"Fuinjutsu," Naruto said the word slowly letting it slip across his tongue as he familiarized himself with it. "It allowed you to transport me, here, to Kirigakure?" Suspicion was written all across his face.

"And it's supposedly super difficult?" Satsuki piped in.

Minoru simply hummed in agreement to what the children were saying.

"And you used that super difficult talent to kidnap me to the Village Hidden in the Mist?" Naruto asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"I invited you to dinner, weirdo." Minoru laughed as he pushed himself away from the table.

"Psht, I'm not a weirdo, you're a weirdo." Naruto scoffed into his bow.

"Do you have any homework, Naru-chan?" Minoru asked as he started to gather the empty bowls from the table.

"No." His answer was short and clipped, causing Satsuki to laugh.

"I wouldn't lie if I were you. Dad has this weird ability to know exactly when someone is lying."

"So go grab your homework Naru, we'll help you out. I'm sure Satsuki would like to learn something new anyways."

"Wait-" Naruto stopped and stared at his silver-haired host. "You mean it?"

"Of course!" Minoru flashed a bright smile at him. "Got to make sure that you're set up for success to become Hokage one day, no?

Satsuki watched quietly as Naruto's eyes welled up and a huge grin spread across his face as learge tears streamed down his face.

"But there is one condition. Do you think you can handle it?"

Wiping the tears from his eyes, the blonde child vigorously nodded his head.

"For now, you have to keep Satsuki and I a secret, okay?

A confused look spread across Naruto's face as he asked one small question, "Why?"

"Because it is necessary."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Satsuki felt as free as a bird. It had been a year since her father had taught her about chakra and how it could be molded into different jutsus, and how it could help strengthen your muscles and help you run faster, or if you put it towards your ears it could help you hear further. Satsuki assumed that it worked for her other senses as well which is why you could find her sitting in her back yard pushing chakra to each of her other senses to see what happened.

Her sense of hearing and smell were already strong to begin with, for reasons that her father never fully explained, only explaining that 'it was necessary' for her to not know the full reason. She found though, that when she pushed chakra to her ears, she could hear even the smallest of insect, flying around the backyard, and when she pushed chakra to her nose, she could smell the dinner being cooked several houses over.

She thought to the next sense that she wanted to try: seeing. Would it be possible for her to see farther if she channeled chakra to her eyes? It was worth a shot. She closed her eyes and slowly started to channel chakra to her eyes. She heard the small yip of Daisuke inside signaling that her father was home, and she could smell the coconut shampoo from his hair as he entered the house. She continued focusing on her eyes, keeping her breathing focused as she did so. A small voice in her said 'Open', and so she followed the command and opened her eyes, and all of a sudden she could see everything with precise clarity.

"This is so cool!" She breathed out as she took in all of her surroundings. Satsuki focused on Daisuke for a moment and the coloured coils that she could see within him "That must be his chakra," She mumbled as she continued to look around not noticing Daisuke slip away in to the house.

"Satsuki?!" She heard her dad holler from inside the house. She turned to look at the doorway and all of a sudden her father was sliding across the grass to right in front of her "Satsuki?" He grabbed her shoulders "What have you done?!" There was panic in his voice, something that she had never heard before. He was always so calm and collected.

"I just put chakra to my eyes is all.." Satsuki mumbled not meeting her father's gaze.

"Stop the flow of chakra, Satsuki, please!" He begged shaking her shoulders. Satsuki followed his orders and cut the chakra going to her eyes, and her father's shoulders sagged in relief when he say the red colouring of her eyes fade back to the original coal black. "Satsuki, you have to promise me that you will NEVER do that again!"

"But why father?" The confusion and worry was apparent across Satsuki's delicate features. "It was so-"She was cut off by her father.

"IT'S DANGEROUS!" Her father shouted and she tried to jump back as it hurt her sensitive ears so much, "It's necessary, you have to promise me to never do that again!" Minoru was shaking from panic at this point.

Satsuki sighed heavily, not fully grasping why what she did was so terrible, but understanding his unspoken order. "Yes father, I promise not to do that again." Her father sighed in relief and drew her in to a tight hug, not allowing her to back out of the embrace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was just over a year ago that Satsuki's father made her promise to never channel chakra to her eyes. He never explained it further than the stereotypical 'It is necessary.' Over the course of the next few months she managed to put the pieces together, and came to the realization that it was this so called 'bloodline war' that was going on that caused her father the worry.

The shinobi who were carrying this war out against those with the kekkai genkais never came close to the house. Minoru was not a shinobi, they lived at the very outer edge of the city, and they did everything possible to seem as boring as possible as to not draw attention to themselves. This made them blend in very well with the civilians who lived all around them. In fact, if you asked anyone of their neighbors, not one would even be able to give an accurate description as to who they were, that's how seemingly 'boring' they were.

Satsuki glanced up from her book 'Tales of the Henohenomoheji' and looked towards the window. It sounded as if the shinobi were coming closer to her home. "That can't be," She muttered as she got up out of the chair and walked towards the window.

She pulled the curtain back the slightest bit from the window and peered through the small open corner of the window. Almost out of her view she got the glimpse of two men walking side by side. One was a tall man with short, fiery red hair that stuck up in every direction; the other being of average height and long black hair. As the men walked closer to her apartment she noticed that they weren't particularly looking at anything, but the one was flipping a kunai knife in his hand as if he was waiting for something to happen.

"What are they doing this far from the tower?" she mumbled to herself as she continued to look at the two men. "That's odd," she continued to talk to herself "They're wearing matching cloaks. That have," she paused a moment longer "red clouds on them?" She snorted quietly "Is that supposed to scare us or some-" Satsuki was cut off as Daisuke started growling from behind her.

She turned to look behind her and saw Daisuke standing up growling with his hackles raised. "What's wrong bud?" Daisuke growled louder in response. "We'll be fine boy." She turned back to the window to watch the strangers finish their trip down the street.

"Eeep!" A brown eye was suddenly staring straight back at her, and she lept backwards letting the window curtain fall back in to place as she skidded across the floor behind Daisuke. Satsuki held her breath and focused on her hearing to see whether or not the man was still outside her window.

She stayed like that for what seemed like hours before she finally let her breath out and started to stand up. "I think he's gone 'Suke. I wonder who those men we-" She instinctively ducked down, slamming her body on to the wooden floor as her living room window shattered to pieces and a kunai came speeding by where her head previously was.

She whipped her head back to the window that the projectile came from to see the faces of the two men staring back at her with mischievous grins. The one with the bright red hair opened his mouth and drawled out "Looks like we finally found the little wolf cub! You're a difficult one to find."

Satsuki stopped as she felt her blood run cold. This was not good. She caught herself staring at the men in front of her and she noticed their headbands. There was a long slash running through each metal forehead protector. They were missing ninja. This was definitely not good.

So there we are, the end of the revised chapter one! I hope y'all liked it, and if you did, please leave a review :)


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Naruto!

Enjoy! : )

"Who are you?" Satsuki questioned from her spot backed up against the wall.

"Ku, ku, ku" the long, black haired man laughed stepping through the now broken window. "She doesn't even know who we are, Sasori." He glanced haphazardly over his shoulder at the red headed man behind him.

Sasori followed the snake-like man through the window and chuckled. "That's surprising, her-" he stopped short, Daisuke growling and moving further in front of Satsuki. "Daddy," the malice in his voice seemingly dripping from is mouth "Spent so much time and trouble hiding her, you'd think he'd have the decency-"

"That's enough." A deep baritone voice echoed through the house.

Satsuki looked towards the source of the voice and saw Daisuke in an offensive crouch and his hackles raised. "What was tha-" Satsuki was cut off when the voice echoed through the apartment once more.

"Satsuki-when I say go, run, and don't look back."

"Oh, how cute. The ninken thinks that he can protect her." The snake-man tutted.

Satsuki could feel her heart beating wildly against her chest as thoughts rain wild in her head. 'Daisuke just talked. These ninjas are after me. What is going on? Did they just call Daisuke a ninken? Why are these ninjas after me? Why didn't my father mention any of this? Why-' She was pulled abruptly from her thoughts by a low growl. She tensed her muscles preparing for what might come next.

"Satsuki-" She jerked her head sharply to look at Daisuke who was taking small deliberate steps forward. "Go!" He bellowed while lunging at the two ninjas.

At that moment Satsuki forgot everything that was going on around her and focused on the one task given to her-running. She scrambled to her feet, the bare soles of her feet slipping on the hard wood floor. Catching her footing last second, she sprinted towards the first opening to get out of the house: a window at the back of the house her father always insisted on leaving open. Trying to ignore the commotion going on at the other side of the house she jumped out the window, and started her way down the street, pausing slightly feeling the ground quaking beneath her bare feet. Looking over her shoulder she saw a large earth wall erupting out of the ground where her house had once been.

"Daisuke," She whispered, her eyes widening. Taking a deep breath, she turned back around and continued running. As she ran further down the street, unsure of where she was 'supposed' to go, she yanked the hood of her trench coat up over her head and whispered "Henge no jutsu". Satsuki's silver hair bled red and her charcoal eyes turned a bright violet colour. Not pausing in her running, she pulled her cloth face mask a little further up on her face making sure it was covering the markings on each of her cheeks and darted down a side alley keeping her ears out for the rougue ninjas who were bound to be after her again soon.

Satsuki darted in and out of alleyways, trying to keep in as much of an undistinguishable path as she could. Keeping her head down she turned another corner and cursed as she ran straight in to someone knocking her to the ground.

Looking up from her position she was blinded by the glint of a forehead protector in the late afternoon sun. "Shinobi-san! I am so sorry!" she mumbled hoping it wasn't the men from earlier.

"Satsuki!" The shinobi breathed out. "I'm so glad that you're alive!" The shinobi lowered himself down to her level allowing her to get a better look at him.

"Dad-?" The spikey silver hair, and the deep smell of peppermint could only belong to one person that she knew. "Dad! What's going on? Where's Naruto? Why are you dressed like a shinobi? There are rouge ninjas-"

"Satsuki." Minoru put has hands on both of her shoulders. "Now is not the time." Satsuki opened her mouth to protest but Minoru gave her a stern look. "Think of this as your first mission." His voice held a no-nonsense tone as he attached a small bag to the belt at her hip, and another on her right calf. "Your identity has been compromised and you are in the enemy's territory." As he spoke, Satsuki noticed the leaf symbol on his forehead protector "You are transporting classified information that could destroy your country if it falls in to the wrong hands." Her father stopped talking for a moment to show her two scrolls with the kanji for fire emblazoned on them and then put two scrolls into an inner pocket of her trench coat. "Your mission is to get it back to the leader and without getting captured."

Satsuki nodded her head tentatively, accepting this 'mission' that her father gave her as she tried to push all confusion and worry to the back of her mind. Cocking her head to the left she gasped as she looked back to her father. "I think they're getting close!"

Minoru cursed under his breath knowing that he had taken too long. "Come, pup, and keep up. There's no room for slowing down here." He was instantly on his feet and grabbed Satsuki's hand jumping to the nearest roof. "Do you remember how to put chakra to your feet to jump farther?" Minoru asked as dropped her hand. "Good" he said after receiving a curt nod from his daughter. He turned his attention back towards his seemingly planned out route.

Satsuki ran behind her father doing all she could to keep up with his fast pace. They had just jumped on to the fourth building when she heard the small whistle of a kunai speeding through the air. She twisted to her left, the kunai just barely grazing her right arm.

"Satsuki, duck!" her father shouted, instinctually she obeyed and crouched down as she ran and listened to two kunai with paper trailing after them whistle by her in the opposite direction. As she heard them pass her she straightened back up and glanced behind her just in time to see a large explosion where the kunai knives had struck. "Keep going Satsuki!" Her father shouted stopping for a moment to let her get in front of him. Minoru turned around and shouted "Haisekishou no jutsu!" Ash flew from his mouth, combining with the moist air to create a large smoke screen. "Come, Satsuki!" Minoru turned back towards his original path with a vengeance. "We've not much time. We have to get (you) across the wall." His voice lowered with each word and Satsuki shot her father a worried glance.

They were a hundred feet away from the wall, and Minoru was starting to get worried. The men hadn't caught up yet, it just wasn't adding up. These were Elite ninja, and he had been out of the game for a while. It was almost as if they were allowing them to get to the edge of the village for a reason. He shook his head and looked back to his daughter. No use in thinking like that. All he had to do was reach the forest on the other side of the wall and the rest of the pieces would fall in to place. There was no room for failure. Too much rode on this. "Satsuki," He said behind him as the approached the wall. "Chakra to your feet and jump to the top of the wall!"

"Hai!" She said nodding her head and scrunching her face together as she focused on catapulting herself to the top of the wall. "Umph" Satsuki grunted as she miscalculated the height of the wall. "Dad!" She shouted, the fingers on her right hand digging into the top of the wall trying to will her muscles to cooperate a little further and help hoist her up over the wall.

"Ku, ku, ku!" There was the laugh again, he was close.

Satsuki swung her body to the left trying to get her hand up to the top.

"Hiakohou no jutsu!" She heard her father shout as she swung one last time to the left, this time her hand being grabbed by her father and he helped hoist her the rest of the way up the wall. "You're doing so well, just a little farther, okay?"

Satsuki once again nodded her head, determination set in her eyes, trusting that her father knew what he was doing.

"Now, jump!" her father jumped ahead of her and hit the ground running. Satsuki took a deep breath and jumped off the ledge of the wall, keeping her eyes trained on her desired landing spot some eighty feet below.

"Awh, too slow!" A voice shouted and the next thing she knew, Satsuki was being dragged through the air to her right by an invisible force. Satsuki looked in fear at the direction she was being pulled and saw Sasori standing with a deviant grin on his face. "If we didn't have the orders that we do, you would make one gorgeous puppet." He licked his lips pulling Satsuki in to his reach and grabbing her tightly to him.

"Let go of me you freak!" She shouted struggling against his strong grip.

"You really are a fighter," The snake-man drawled out "Just like your mother was at your age." He put his face inches from hers and grabbed her neck and squeezed. "I always hated your mother." He ground out.

"And I don't like you either!" Satsuki growled out, spitting at the man through her teeth.

"Why you little!" the man hissed, squeezing her throat harder.

"I would recommend letting go of her, Orochimaru." The named man turned his head sharply towards the forest.

"Ku, ku, ku." He laughed, letting go of Satsuki. "I would have thought that my snakes would have killed you as soon as you hit the ground."

"What can I say. I'm full of surprises." He laughed winking at Satsuki. "What about you Sasori? What about a good ol' round of two on one? For old time sakes that is?" Satsuki felt her heart drop. Her dad wanted to take on the two of them at once?

"Dad, no!" She shouted further trying to struggle her way out of the red head's grasp.

"No worries, pup. I have a few tricks up my sleeve still." He gave her his award-winning grin and whispered "Summoning no jutsu."

In that split second everything changed. Sasori dropped Satsuki with a loud shout, and as soon as she hit the ground she skidded as far backwards as she could, her back slamming up against a tree.

"You think a bunch of dogs is going to keep me down, filthy leaf scum?" Sasori shouted knocking them away, one by one, each dog disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

"No, but it served its purpose." He looked over his shoulder at Satsuki against the tree. "Satsuki, remember the mission. I'll catch up as soon as possible."

Satsuki gave him a confused look. There was no way that she was leaving without him, mission or no mission. She caught his eye for a brief moment and noticed the look he had. It was the same look he got whenever he was getting himself out of a tough spot in a game of Shogi.

"I find it amusing that you think she is going anywhere," Orochimaru smiled throwing a kunai at Minoru and a second one at Satsuki.

Satsuki ducked, the kunai sticking out of the tree where her head had been seconds before. Grabbing a kunai from her pouch and throwing it back at Orochimaru with all the might she could muster she noticed black writing snaking its way up her hand. Her eyes widened and she looked back to her father in fear.

"What can I say, I picked up a knack for seals over the last few years." Minoru chuckled to himself watching as the seal finished working its way across Satsuki and started to glow. "Enough to make the Yondaime Hokage jealous if he were still alive."

Orochimaru let out a loud shout as his eyes snapped open and looked at the small girl. "How did you?!" he ground out, launching himself towards her, trying to catch her before the seal took hold

Sasori chuckled and threw a barrage of kunai at the girl and turned his focus on her father.

Satsuki panicked, trying to stand up and get out of danger, only to find that her legs would no longer cooperate with her. She looked up in fear to see that glint in her father's eyes one last time, seemingly begging her to trust him just this last time. She squeezed her eyes tight and bracing herself for the inevitable she heard her father's voice echo out: "Now it's time to play."

Suddenly the grass underneath her was gone and replaced with hard wood floor. The humid air became dry and the noise from the forest melted away and was replaced by the low playful chatter of children and adults.

Satsuki slowly opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. The forest edge where she had just been was gone and it was replaced with what looked like a small apartment. She shakily rose to her feet, her energy quickly leaving her, and walked over to a window that was letting in the last few rays of day light. Looking out the window she saw people walking quickly through the streets of a town that looked the complete opposite of Kirigakure. Satsuki's heart sank as the pieces quickly fell in to place as exhaustion and shock took over.

She hit the ground with a loud thud, her last thought before completely passing out being 'This was his plan the whole time. I was the king that he saved from checkmate.'

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	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Naruto.

Enjoy :D

Umino Iruka liked to believe that he was a very patient man. Years as a field shinobi proved that. He knew when to take orders, when to speak up, and when to just wait it out to find a useful opening. His patience came in handy on a daily basis as an instructor at the ninja academy of Konohagakure, where he taught the next generation of ninjas.

He taught them how to mold chakra, throw shuriken, and how to create well thought out plans all in hopes that they would not one day be caught unaware and be added to the ever-growing memorial at the outskirts of training ground seven. He put up with sarcastic comments about his lectures, sleeping students, and attention crying children. Attention crying children like Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto was an enigma that he always needed extra patience for. When he first started in the academy, he was nothing but an attention seeker. Naruto was the village pariah, and he learned at a very early age that a large majority of the village did not sit well with him. They would ignore him, and whisper behind his back. They would go out of their way to make sure he received spoiled foods at stores, and when they couldn't sell him spoiled foods, they would charge him double. They would throw things at him and teach their children that he was 'dangerous'. They did all this in hope that the blonde child would learn that he wasn't wanted. This in turn taught him at an early age, that even if he did something wrong in the village he would be greeted with the same reactions if he were to do something well: scorn, distaste, and hate. This knowledge that Naruto had come upon had taught him to fear no punishment, worry no outcomes, and push himself to the boundaries of his creativity to try and garner the attention that he desperately craved: love and affection.

This was something Iruka knew all too well. When he was a child, his parents had died during the Kyuubi attack that had devastated the village, and he became an orphan just like Naruto. He thought back on his past and could still clearly see the looks of pity on the civilians' faces when they looked at him. He had done the same thing that Naruto had. He acted out trying to get reactions other than the one he received everywhere he had went, to show that he was more than what they thought of him. He had quickly become a class clown in order to receive the attention he truly wanted just like Naruto.

When Iruka had recognized exactly what was going on, he did what he could to reach out to the young boy, trying to show him that there where those out there who did care for him. He took him out for dinner, would ask him how his week has been going, and keep a watchful eye out for him whenever something seemed off.

"That kid is going to be the death of me," he sighed slipping his sandals on to his feet before stepping outside as the sun just started peeking over the horizon.

Just over year ago though, Naruto started to get his act together and paying attention in class. Iruka had thought it was all in preparation for another one of his grand pranks and stayed on his toes for weeks worrying about what the blonde child had in store for him and the other teachers of the ninja academy. The weeks turned to months though, and nothing had surmounted other than Naruto genuinely getting better in his studies.

In the beginning, he and the other academy teachers had thought he was cheating. They gave pop quiz after pop quiz, and one teacher even put a genjutsu over his exams, and each time Naruto was able to identify it, break it, and still be able to pass the exam with flying colours. No-one had been able to explain how he was doing monumentally better than before, and even when Naruto himself had been asked about it, it was a seemingly cryptic answer.

Flashback

"Naruto," Iruka called to the back of the classroom from his spot behind his desk as the bell signaled for the end of the day "Can you please stay behind for a minute please?" Iruka listened as the other children sniggered and made small comments about Naruto being asked to stay after class and he frowned. "You're not in trouble." He added as an afterthought.

Naruto looked up from his notebook, a look of shock and a small frown across his face. He nodded and slowly put his belongings into his orange knapsack as the other kids left the class.

"Naruto, please come down here." Iruka stated rather than asked after the last student had left.

Naruto obediently complied and put his knapsack over his shoulder and walked down the stairs of the auditorium like classroom down to the teacher's desk. Keeping his eyes trained on the ground he reached the side of the desk and waited patiently.

"Naruto, I already told you that you are not in trouble. Please look at me when I talk to you." Naruto took a moment before he slowly raised his gaze from the floor.

"So, you're not going to yell at me for getting good grades?" He scoffed putting a little too much emphasis on the word 'not'.

Iruka frowned slightly making a mental note to inquire about that at a later point before bringing the topic of this discussion to light. "No, Naruto, I just wanted to congratulate you on how well you have been doing these last few months." Iruka smiled softly at the child in front of him. "You have improved so much, it is nearly incomparable to how you were doing this time last year!" Iruka paused in has adulation to see the small smile gracing Naruto's face. "In fact, I was wondering what had happened to cause you to focus so much more on your studies?" Iruka probed for the answers he was craving.

Naruto chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "Well-" he started to talk and then paused, as if contemplating exactly what he was going to say next. "Just a friend-" he mumbled his voice trailing off at the end.

"What?" Iruka asked, his brows scrunching up trying to decipher the jumbled end of Naruto's answer.

"Just a friend," Naruto mumbled again looking down to the floor. "They say 'No matter how loud the wind howls, the mountain can not bow to it.'" Naruto paused and looked back up at Iruka, who had a curious look on his face. "Meaning that you need to have a sturdy foundation. The mighty wind will hack away at the surface, but as long as there is a sturdy foundation it does not matter how long, loud, or strong, the wind is; the mountain will prevail and come out victorious in the end." Naruto repeated the phrase as if he heard it often and looked to Iruka who was smiling and nodding his head. "Their father said that it is important to learn things properly the first time around in the academy if I want to have the sturdy base in order to properly protect the village one day."

"You can talk the talk, but it doesn't matter unless you can walk the walk." Iruka smiled "Your friend and their father sound very astute. Do I know this friend of yours?"

His smile diminished the slightest bit as Naruto responded "No, their family has some interesting rules about strangers."

"Does this friend of yours have a name?" Iruka questioned looking for a little more information about this mystery friend of his.

"Everyone has a name." He responded quickly, scoffing at the question. "But it is not my place to give their name." Naruto finished seeing the disapproving look of his Sensei.

"Could I meet this friend of yours then?" Iruka tried one last time to get further information about this mysterious friend.

"Maybe one day." Naruto responded quickly and curtly, as if signaling that he was done with this conversation.

Iruka sighed, and let a small smile replace the frown that had graced his face over the last few questions. "I look forward to that day then." He stood up from his spot leaning on the edge of his desk, "You can go now, I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time Naruto-kun. Have a nice evening."

"You as well Iruka-Sensei!" Iruka watched Naruto as he backed up hesitantly two steps before turning on his heel and running out of the room as if the ANBU were on his tail.

End Flashback

Iruka sucked in a large breath of the chill morning air as he shut his front door behind him. Locking the door behind him he noticed a kunai sticking out of the middle of the door with a piece of paper pinned between it and the door with his name scrawled across the outer facing side of the paper.

Slightly annoyed that his door was damaged by the kunai, he yanked it out of the door as if its presence was offensive and grabbed the note. Unfolding it, he skimmed the contents and felt his patience level lowering, as he finished the note.

He was getting a new student today. He had just received communication of this and class starts in less than two hours. He had wanted to get to class early that morning in order to finish some last-minute grading, and now he had to escort the new student to school as the Hokage did not have any one else available to take her. To top it off, he had already had his morning planned around stopping by Naruto's apartment and walking with him to school as he was really down about something that had happened yesterday and refused to talk to anyone. Taking another brief look at the note he sighed. The student's apartment was in the same building as Naruto's, so maybe this wouldn't take much longer than originally planned. Iruka carefully folded the note back up and slid it into his pocket and started his trek.

He made it to the apartment complex in twenty minutes and slowly walked up the dilapidated stairs to the second level. Iruka rubbed his hand across his scarred nose and strolled up to Naruto's door and knocked three times. Iruka waited a minute or two before knocking a second time, this time a little more forcefully.

"Naruto!" he called "It's Iruka-Sensei. Time for school, come-on let's go!" Iruka grinned as he heard a small 'thump' come from within the apartment. Iruka waited a few moments longer before the door unceremoniously swung open to reveal Naruto with a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth.

"Really?" Naruto grumbled through the toast as he just stood in his doorway half dressed.

"I told you yesterday that I would be stopping by to walk with you to school today. Remember?" Iruka questioned, one eyebrow raised as he took in Naruto's appearance. "Are you going to go to school like that, or would you like to put a shirt on."

Naruto just kept standing in his doorway with an annoyed look on his face.

"Now, Naruto. There is someone else who is going to be joining us." Iruka took a look at his watch and frowned, before looking back up to Naruto. "We're supposed to meet them in ten minutes." Naruto groaned before moving out of his door enough to let Iruka in to his apartment while he grabbed his things for school.

Iruka drank in his surroundings as Naruto ran back and forth through the apartment collecting his school supplies. It was a rather messy apartment, but about what one would expect of a young boy living on his own. He had a few pictures of him with the Hokage on a corner table, and dirty dishes strewn across the counter. He had clothes, which he couldn't decide if they were clean or not, draped across the backs of chairs and hanging on a makeshift clothes line strung through the middle of the sitting room. What caught his attention the most though was that on the table there were what seemed like a hundred paper leaflets with black designs scrolled across them.

"Naruto, what is this?" He questioned, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"It's nothing." Naruto rattled off. "It's just something I do when I-nevermind," he shook his forcefully and then looked back to Iruka, "I'm ready, let's go."

Iruka sighed in annoyance. Naruto knew that he could trust him, why would that be changing all of a sudden?

Naruto upon hearing Iruka's dissatisfaction quickly apologized. "Look, I just don't really want to talk about it right now, okay?" Naruto's voice was soft and apologetic.

"Alright, but remember, I am always there if you need someone to talk to." Iruka mentioned. 'It must have something to do with why he was acting so strange yesterday.'

Flashback

Iruka walked out of the large red doors at the front of the academy just in time to see the waning sunlight disappearing over the horizon, basking the village in golden light. Locking the doors behind him he turned around to see a sight that he hadn't in a while: Naruto sitting on the lone swing his forehead pressed against the rope holding it in place.

"Naruto-?" Iruka questioned. It was Tuesday. Naruto can never sit still on Tuesdays. He's always so excited to get out of the class on Tuesdays that he practically trips over himself.

"Oh. Hey, Iruka-sensei," He mumbled looking back to the ground.

"What's up? Is everything alright Naruto?" Iruka crouched down till he was on eye level with Naruto.

"Yeah, 'm fine," Naruto said in a low voice, avoiding eye contact.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Iruka asked, an idea popping in to his head. "We can chat over some ramen?"

Naruto sighed heavily shaking his head as he slowly stood up. "That's okay, but I think I'm just gonna go home. Thanks anyways Iruka." Naruto turned and started the walk towards his house, only for Iruka to catch him by his shoulder.

"That's fine, but tomorrow, we're going to talk about it. I'm going to come by and we'll walk to school together, kay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Naruto mumbled shaking Iruka's hand from his shoulder and continuing down the street.

Iruka watched as Naruto disappeared down the street, letting the worry dance through his head. Naruto never turned down ramen. He sighed and scratched the back of his head. What could have happened to cause his day to take an extreme left turn like that?

End Flashback

"Alright, alright, enough with the sappy stuff Iruka-Sensei! Where is this person that we are supposed to be meeting?" Like a flip being switched, Naruto was back to being his happy go lucky self and bouncing around in anticipation of meeting someone new. "What's their name? What are they like? Is it a boy? I hope they hate Sasuke too. Man, Iruka-sensei, I really hope it's not a fan-girl!"

"I'm afraid I know about as much as you do Naruto. I wasn't even given a name, just their address." Iruka shrugged his shoulders giving Naruto a small smile. "They live one floor up. Come' on now, we're late."

The two made their way up stairs and stopped in front of a door that would put the apartment right above Naruto's. Iruka straightened his vest and knocked three times on the door and called loudly "Hello, I am Umino Iruka, here to escort you to the academy!" A few minutes passed and no noise could be heard coming from the apartment, so Iruka knocked a second time a little more forcefully and introduced himself again.

"See, they aren't excited about getting up this early either," Naruto supplied from behind Iruka. Iruka glared at Naruto, turning back towards the door as the small click of a lock sounded, and the door opened just enough to show a pair of eyes between the edge of the door and the frame itself. "Hello there!" He greeted, "I'm Umino Iruka, and I'm here to escort someone at this address to the Academy for their first day today. Who might you be?"

"Who sent you?" The owner of the eyes questioned, distrust evident in their voice.

"Hokage-sama, sent me to escort you. I am a teacher at the academy." Iruka stated, a smile still on his face despite the tone that was being taken with him.

"Excuse me, did you just say Hokage?" this time confusion laced their voice.

"Yeah he did!" Naruto shouted "Old man Hokage sent him to come get you and bring you to school today!" Naruto shoved his way around Iruka to get a better glimpse at the owner of the voice.

"Hey, careful!" Iruka stated stepping out of Naruto's way, giving him clear view of the barely open door.

"Wait a second-" Naruto whispered stepping closer to the door. He recognized those eyes. No-one else in Konoha had eyes like that. He put his hand up to the door and pushed, ignoring Iruka's protest. "Saaa-Kumo, is that you?"

I hope y'all enjoyed.

Don't forget to leave a review if you wish.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own Naruto!

Satsuki's eyes shot fluttered open and she groaned slightly as she peeled herself from the hardwood floor beneath her. Her mind was groggy, her heart was beating quickly, and she was having difficulty putting the pieces together. Where was she, and why was she on the floor?

"Rule 48: Orientation" a voice clearly sounded in her head.

She silently stood to her feet and willed her heart to calm down. She took a deep breath and cleared her senses. She took a step further towards the center of the room and took stock of what was around her. The room she was standing in was divided in two: one side being the sitting area and the other the kitchen. There was as a window on two of the four walls. 'Must be in an apartment' she thought to herself seeing the hallway that led further into the building.

Satsuki started towards the window on the far wall and paused, ' _Someone is knocking on a door somewhere._ ' Satsuki closed the gap between her and the window in a few short strides and peered out.

She couldn't see much from her vantage points other than the small quantity of sunlight starting to bleed in to the streets, but she could hear and smell enough to give her some semblance of what was going on. ' _Someone shuffling their feet in the street below. Someone is knocking on a door again. One, two, three. Three times. A cat just yowled. Oh, a trash bin fell. Cat must have knocked it over. No people are yelling. Must have been an alley. Someone fell off of something. Bread. There's a bakery nearby. Something smells spicy. There's no spicy food in the land of water. Something smells of copper. Must be the water pipes. It's warm already, and dry also. That's unusual for Kiri_ ' She paused in her thoughts tilting her head to the side. ' _Someone is coming up a set of stairs._ ' She focused on the footsteps. ' _There are two someones, and they're coming this way._ ' She listened as the foot steps drew closer stopping in front of the door of the small apartment she was currently standing in.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Three raps sounded upon the door, and Satsuki froze as someone began to speak on the other side of the door. ' _I don't even know where I am. How would someone else know that I'm here? Where is my dad? Why-_ '

Three distinct raps sounded on the door a second time. She half listened to the person on the other side of the door as they called out a greeting and she narrowed her eyes. Rule number 23: Always be prepared for something to go wrong.

Satsuki reached her hand into the kunai pouch still attached to the belt of her battle kimono, and pulled one out, holding it firmly in her hand. Rule 5: Silence is your best friend. She silently crossed the few feet to the door and whispered 'henge no jutsu', red hair and violet eyes once again replacing her normal features.

Keeping the kunai hidden behind the door she slowly unlocked the door and opened it just enough to see who was on the other side.

"Hello there!" a brunette man with a large scar across his nose greeted, "I'm Umino Iruka, and I'm here to escort someone at this address to the Academy for their first day today. Who might you be?"

"Who sent you?" She questioned, the distrust evident in her voice.

"Hokage-sama, sent me to escort you. I am a teacher at the academy." Iruka stated, a smile gracing his features.

"Excuse me, did you just say Hokage?" confusion sounded in her voice as her mind went in to over drive. There's no way she could be in the land of Fire. Could there?

"Yeah he did!" a secondary voice shouted "Old man Hokage sent him to come get you and bring you to school today!"

"Hey, careful!" Iruka stated stepping out of someone's way, giving Satsuki the ability to see a mop of unruly blond hair.

"Wait a second-" the mop of hair whispered so low that Satsuki could barely hear it. He continued to step closer to the door, her eyes widening and taking in the threat, Satsuki tightened her grip on the knife in her right hand.

"Rule #2: Expect the unexpected" the voice once again rang clearly through her head.

"Saaa-Kumo, is that you?" the door pushed further and she stepped back a half step.

All at once everything clicked back in to place and she remembered what had happened: Daisuke, Orochimaru, Sasori, her father-everything.

With a speed she didn't know she possessed she grabbed the shoulder of the blonde pushing her door open and pinned him to the doorframe, her knife held firmly against his neck as every single one of the lessons that her father ever taught her ran through her mind.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Iruka shouted trying to close the distance between them.

"Don't come any closer." She stated evenly looking out of the corner of her eye as she applied more pressure on the knife.

"It's fine Iruka-Sensei," the blonde chuckled. "Rule number-what is it again? 8? Beware a wolf in sheep's clothing." A smile erupted across his face and he winked back at the scarred teacher.

"Why does the caged bird sing?" Satsuki questioned through gritted teeth.

"Because it knows that one day, it will have the chance of freedom. That all the suffering that it is currently experiencing will all be in the past and will be nothing but a memory, a bad dream that they can use to further themselves in getting closer to their dreams." The smile faded slightly, a glimmer of sadness reaching his eyes for a moment as he finished his answer. "How does the mountain stand?" He countered the question, the grin back on his face and reaching his ears.

Satsuki let out a long breath that she didn't know she was holding in before she answered. "It stands tall. It stands knowing where it came from, and what its' future may bring. It stands, knowing the creatures he adores below have somewhere safe to stay and live out their lives, and that no matter what dangers may come, he will always be there to protect the ones he loves, because he never stands alone." A grin spread across her face as she lowered the kunai.

"Kumo!" he shouted wrapping her in a large hug. "I was so worried the other day!"

"You? Worried?" She scoffed hugging him back, the knife held limply in her hand. "The Great Naruto Uzumaki is capable of feelings?"

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" The two jumped away from each other as Iruka shouted, confusion, annoyance, and worry written across his face.

"Well you see, Iruka-sensei," Naruto paused gesturing towards Satsuki who was instinctively pulling her face mask further up on her already covered face. "This is my friend. You remember? The one I was telling you about?"

The confusion remained on his face for a moment longer before slowly dissipating. "This, is your friend?" Iruka asked the worry and annoyance still present in his tone.

"Yeah! Iruka-sensei, she's great, her father too! Wait till you meet him." Naruto paused and then turned to his friend, a questioning look on his face. "Where is he anyways?"

In that moment everything froze. Satsuki felt as if her heart and dropped out of her chest, and as if there was no air left in the world. ' _Where was her father? Probably back in the land of water. Was he okay? What happened to the other two ninjas? What happened to Daisuke? Was he even still alive? Why did they come after her in the first place? What-_ '

"Sakumo," she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently, and she tightened her grip on the kunai. "Sakumo, are you alright?"

She let out a breath that she didn't realize she was holding and blinked her eyes to see the brown-haired ninja on his knees in front of her.

"Sakumo, are hurt you?" Iruka questioned suddenly "There's blood all over your kimono." He prodded further.

She looked at him with a furrowed brow and took a deep breath in. That old copper smell. She looked down at her yellow battle kimono. It wasn't water pipes that smelt like copper, it was her dress. Ignoring Iruka's question for a moment longer she closely inspected one of the tears in the sleeve. It was a clean incision, approximately two inches in length, matching the width of a standard kunai knife. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six incisions in her outfit with old blood staining the area around the incisions. The now red-head stuck her two of her fingers in to one of the holes and widened it, and looked at the unmarred skin underneath, kunai dancing through her vision as she remembered the last few seconds outside of Kirigakure.

She looked back up at Iruka, pushing all emotions of what had transpired into a small box at the back of her mind. "Kumo, and no." she stated flatly. "Didn't you say something about school?" She questioned, trying to draw the subject away from her "Won't we be late, if you keep asking silly questions?"

Iruka sighed looking down at his watch, knowing that the violet eyed child in front of him was correct, but not liking the answers he had been given so far. "You can't wear those clothes to school. Do you have anything else?"

Kumo snorted, "Well y-' she paused once again coming to the startling realization that she was in a completely different country from yesterday and that she may not have any other clothing. She looked down at the floor in embarrassment, all of sudden very thankful for the dark mask covering the lower half of her face that was keeping the others from seeing the red tint spread across her cheeks.

"Wait a second!" The boy shouted, the three whisker marks that graced each of his cheeks turning upwards with his smile. "I have some of your things down stairs in my apartment from last time I visited! Your dad must have put it in my bag by accident. I'll be right back!" Naruto was already half way out the door at this exclamation, leaving the so-dubbed Kumo alone with Iruka.

"Sakumo-" He started, unsure of how he wanted to proceed on what was obviously a difficult subject for the child in front of him. "I know we just met, but if something happened to you, you can tell me. I'm a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, just like you will be one day." Iruka gave a small smile. "And it's our job to help defend the future of the village."

Upon hearing this, Kumo tightened her grip on her kunai and a frown reached her eyes, and took a few steps back from the still kneeling shinobi. "Why aren't all Konoha shinobi like that, then?" She muttered.

"KUMO!" The exact moment that Iruka opened his mouth to respond, Naruto came running back in to the apartment with a set of clothes in his hand. He stopped between the two and looked back and forth for a moment before speaking up again. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No." Kumo growled, grabbing the items from her friend's arms, and running down the hallway in the direction she assumed led to a bathroom.

Iruka stood back up to his full height of five feet and ten inches and crossed his arms across his chest, his mind running a thousand miles a minute trying to understand exactly what had happened to the little girl that was his charge for the moment.

"Iruka-sensei, what did you do?"

"Just asked her a few questions is all. Nothing to worry about."

At that point Kumo came out from the back of the apartment changed in to clean clothes. She had black thigh length compression shorts on underneath a dark forest green battle kimono. The skirt on her kimono was finger length leaving it only four inches shorter than her compression shorts. The kimono had long flowing sleeves and what would have been a V-neck collar had her mask not been connected to it. Said mask was fixed in its normal spot across the bridge of her nose, covering the two triangle marks on her face that she had been taught since she was little to never show the world. On her feet she wore knee high boots, and to complete the outfit she had a large black hood that was covering her blood red waist length hair.

Kumo stood with her head held high and closed the distance between them as quickly and silently as possibly. Any and all emotions that had been playing through her mind since the two visitors arrived in the apartment completely wiped away. "Are we going?" the question was flat, more of a statement than a question.

Iruka took stock of her outfit and frowned, noticing the kunai pouch attached to her hip, and her right thigh. "You can't take real weapons to school."

A shocked look danced across Kumo's face for barely a second before she pushed that emotion away as well. With a huff she took off the two pouches and set them on the bookcase situated by the door.

The smile reappeared on Iruka's face. "Now we're ready. Let's go" He opened the doors and took a few steps outside. "Try to keep up, guys, we are running late." Iruka sighed, worry still running rampant through his mind for both children in his company.

Iruka took off running towards the academy, Naruto and Kumo just behind them.

"Kumo," Naruto hissed keeping his eyes on the path in front of him. "What happened yesterday?"

"Now's not the time Naru." She hissed back through clenched teeth.

"You sensed them too?" Naruto glanced to his right, just enough to see a curt nod being directed at him.

The two of them ran in silence after the brunette teacher guiding the way. After ten minutes the three of them came to a stop in front of the large red doors with the kanji for fire written on them.

"Iruka-sensei, where is everyone?"

Iruka rolled his eyes at Naruto's question before responding. "We're almost late. They're inside already. Come-on." Iruka led them inside. "You're going to be in my class with Naruto, Kumo." He looked down at his watch and sighed ' _Just in time'_ he thought opening the doors to the classroom and leading them inside.

As soon as she entered the room, she knew that she didn't like school. Kumo had never been in a traditional classroom a day in her life, but this, after being in the classroom for thirty seconds, told her that it would not be an enjoyable experience.

There were children screaming, causing her ears to twitch every time that someone opened their mouth. There were scents of every degree, from body odor, and too much perfume, to food, to the chemicals used to clean the floors. Kumo faltered in the door way, grabbing on to the doorframe for extra support.

"EVERYBODY QUIET!" Iruka hollered walking to the front of the room, causing everyone in the classroom to instantly silence and causing Kumo's knees to buckle under her from the sudden increase in sound, and her knees hit the ground with a loud thud.

Kumo gasped, her hands clutching her ears for dear life. A ringing filled her ears, and stars danced in her vision, as she took several deliberate deep breaths in. Kumo slowly stood back up, the hood that had previously been covering her head falling backwards revealing her masked face and unusual hair colour.

The whispers started anew as the students noticed her standing in the doorway of the classroom.

"Who's that?"

"Who does she think she is?"

"She has a stupid hair colour."

"I love her kimono!"

"Why was she on the ground?"

"I'm sure she's just as weak as the rest of the girls here."

"Why does she wear a mask?"

"She better not try to steal Sasuke-kun from me! I'll teach her what it means to be a real kunoichi! Cha!"

Kumo ignored the comments that were being made, her ears perking up when when she heard Iruka starting to speak again, this time at a softer volume.

"Class I would like everyone to give a nice warm welcome to our new classmate: Sakumo. Sakumo, please come down and introduce yourself."

Kumo walked down to the front of classroom ignoring the eyes that were tracking her every move. She came to a stop right next to Iruka, and with her shoulders back and her chin up she calmly introduced herself.

"My name is Hayashi Sakumo, but please," she stressed the last word a little too much and directed a small glare at her blonde best friend. "Call me Kumo. It's a pleasure to meet you all." Kumo couldn't bring herself to say anything further so she gave a short bow.

"Alright, Sakumo, please take the seat between Naruto and Shikamaru." Iruka pointed to an empty seat between Naruto and a sleeping boy with brown, pineapple like hair.

Kumo responded with a small "Hai" And quietly walked up and took her given seat, taking inventory of those around her. To her right was the sleeping kid, Shikamaru, and to her left was Naruto who was sending he concerned looks every minute or so. Directly in front of her was a boy with unruly brown hair who smelled like-Kumo took a breath in before scrunching her nose in disgust-he smelled like wet dog. The boy to his immediate right, wore an outfit with a high collar-one she was sure covered most of his face. He seemed very stoic, sitting with has back straight in his chair. He didn't smell as bad as the boy next to him, but she could hear what sounded like thousands of tiny wings buzzing around him. Odd.

Taking stock of the other children in the class, she saw a girl with purple hair wearing a thick winter jacket, one girl with bubblegum pink hair and another one with platinum blonde hair. There was a larger boy munching on a bag of potato chips (barbeque flavor if she was smelling correctly), and there was a boy with a smug look on his face and his nose held so high in the air, Kumo was sure he couldn't see the board or either of the teachers very well at all.

The first teacher was Iruka-Sensei, he wore what appeared to be the standard Konoha shinobi uniform and had his hitai-ate tied across his forehead. He had a small smile on his face that reached his chocolate brown eyes and he stopped often making sure that everyone was understanding what he was explaining.

The other teacher, went by the name of Mizuki. He too wore the standard Konoha Shinobi uniform, and his hitai-ate was tied like a bandana around his head. He had pale blue, almost white hair, and a calculating smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

She caught him staring at her several times throughout the day, and each time and made her skin crawl a little more making her extremely happy when the bell rang at the end of the day.

"Alright, everyone," Mizuki spoke out over the bell. "Make sure you complete the assigned reading and the essay on the Third Ninja World War is due tomorrow." Mizuki looked up from the stack of papers he was shuffling. "That means you too, Kumo-chan." The way Mizuki phrased that made her shudder, wishing that Iruka hadn't left him in charge when he left early.

"Forget him, Kumo," Naruto said grabbing her hand and pulling her out the door.

As soon as the two of them were out of the classroom they started sprinting towards the front of the building. Kumo following the bright blonde hair of her best friend as he wove in and out of the other children. They were almost home free when 'SMACK' Naruto ran straight into someone, causing Kumo to run straight in to him.

The two of them fell to the ground with an ungraceful thud, causing the student to laugh. From her spot on the ground, Kumo took a good look at him. He wore a fur lined hoodie that was pulled up over his head, and the standard shinobi pants with bandages wrapped around his right thigh. He had wild looking eyes and a toothy grin on his face that gave him a feral look. What struck Kumo the most though, was the two red triangles on his face-one on each cheek.

"What's the rush Loser?" He crossed his arms and looked down at the two, the grin even wider on his face.

"What's it matter to you Kiba?" Naruto shot back, picking himself up off the ground and dusting himself off.

Kumo watched the interaction start to play out and stretched her senses out to keep an eye out for incoming adults.

"I just thought you would want to introduce your friend to Akamaru and I." Kumo could hear the mischief dancing in his tone. Kiba took a step closer and Kumo scrunched her nose in disgust, wet dog, this was the boy who sat in front of her in class.

"You heard her introduction in class dog-breath," Naruto crossed his arms, a frown appearing on his face.

"Why, you!" Kiba jerked forward, catching Naruto by the collar of his bright orange sweat jacket.

"Adult, coming down the hall. Two turns down." Kumo stated her tone even, trying to keep the two from fighting.

Kiba snapped his head towards her and growled, "There's no way you can know that!"

"Are you guys fighting again? Man y'all are such a drag." A new voice carried down the hall.

"Stay out of this Shikamaru, this is our fight." Kiba glared at Shikamaru out of the corner of his eye.

"Y'all should listen to Kumo, she's pretty good at what she does." Naruto stated bluntly ignoring the exchange between the two brunettes.

At this point Kumo stood up from her spot on the ground and dusted her skirt off. "Three." Shikamaru and Kiba turned to look at her. "Two." Shikamaru jammed his hands in to his pockets and slouched backwards. "One." Kiba tightened his grip on Naruto's collar and growled.

"Do you seriously think I believe that you could hear a teacher coming around the corner before I could? I'm an Inuzaka and we are-"

"INUZUKA, KIBA!" Instantly Naruto was dropped on the floor and a horrified look appeared on his face. "What on Earth do you think you're doing?" A tall woman with short brunette hair and wild eyes that put Kiba's to shame snarled. She too, like Kiba, had a long red triangle on each cheek.

"They did warn him that you were coming, Inuzuka-sama," Shikamaru drawled walking away from the scene.

"I told you, Kiba, she's good at what she does." Naruto scoffed, picking himself up from the floor and crossing his arms. "Inuzuka-sama, I am terribly sorry," Naruto bowed addressing the elder Inuzuka "We were in a terrible rush to get home and accidently bumped in to Kiba. It was not our intention to start a fight." Politeness laced Naruto's voice, but Kumo knew it was faked.

Inuzuka-sama raised her eyebrow taking in the appearance of the blonde and red-head in front of her. "I've never seen her around, who is she." The question was bluntly put, demanding an answer rather than giving the option.

"Inuzuka-sama," Kumo also bowed in politeness. "I am Hayashi, Kumo. Today was my first day in the academy." She stood up straight and eye smiled at the woman in front of her. "Naruto was to show me straight home after school today, and we were not fully paying attention. My father was leaving on a mission today, and we wanted to catch him before he left." Kumo allowed a crestfallen look to cross her face, willing her lie to be believed by the experienced kunoichi in front of her.

"Kiba," the older woman snarled. "Go home. We'll deal with this later." Kiba instantly did what she commanded and turned heel and ran, a small white dog following after him. After he disappeared from view she too turned to leave, pausing for a moment to look back over her shoulder at Kumo and Naruto. "That's a most unusual hair colour that you have, Hayashi-san."

The duo paused and looked at each other for a moment before watching the elder Inuzuka disappear from sight. Kumo stretched her senses out to make sure she wasn't sticking around but in doing so, she noticed two faint chakra signatures. The same two she had felt this morning on her way to school. They were faint, but not because they were weak, they were faint because they were suppressing their chakra, the same thing that her and Naruto had been trained to do by her father over the last year. Who ever the two signatures belonged to, didn't want them to notice that they were being followed.

Kumo made a small hissing noise and held up two fingers and eye smiled as she pulled her hood up over her head, making it appear almost as if she was flashing him a victory sign. Naruto mirrored her understanding the message and took off sprinting in the direction of the apartments that they came from that morning.

Naruto led them down abandoned alleys and side streets avoiding as many civilians as possible making it to the apartment complex in short time. The two walked up the stairs in silence, Naruto leading them upstairs and in to the apartment that Kumo had woken up in earlier that day.

"Hey Kumo?" Naruto asked, reaching his hand out for hers.

Kumo looked over at Naruto a questioning look on her face as she raised her hand towards his.

"Mind if I borrow this?" Naruto smirked grabbing Kumo's hand and pumped some chakra from his hand to hers, a trick to break a Henge no jutsu that Kumo's father had taught him earlier that year.

Instantly the red colour drained from Kumo's hair, and her violet eyes melted into their normal charcoal colour.

"Satsuki," Naruto started, letting go of his silver-haired friend's hand. "What exactly is going on?"

Satsuki opened her mouth the say something, and then stopped hearing something move in the far corner of the apartment.

"That's what I would like to know."

I hope y'all enjoyed!

See ya next time.


	5. Chapter 5

I do not own Naruto.

Enjoy!

Satsuki and exchanged a quick look with Naruto as she reached her arm behind her towards the bookshelf she remembered leaving her weapon pouches that morning.

"If you think I would leave weapons around where my enemies could easily get at them, you're mistaken." The voice sounded again.

Satsuki looked to her right and confirmed that both weapon pouches were missing from where they were left that morning. A glare crossed her eyes as she looked back towards the voice.

"Imagine my surprise this morning, when I was alerted by my ANBU that a nine-year-old seal was activated in this very apartment, a seal that has been untouched since it was placed."

"Jiji," Naruto's voice danced with confusion next to her. "What are you talking about?"

Satsuki refused to look at her best friend, her eyes trained on the man who had stepped out of the shadows of the room. He was an older man, his hair completely white and deep wrinkles running trails along his face. He wore a deep red kimono with a white cloak over top, and on his head, he wore a red hat with a sole kanji on the front: 'Fire'.

" _ **He's the Hokage. Kneel."**_ A voice in the back of her head growled.

Almost instantly her knee hit the ground and she bowed her head, her long silver locks lying in small pools on the floor before her.

"I was told that no-one was here. That it was a false alarm." The Hokage stated, his tone even, ignoring Naruto as he walked closer to the kneeling child. "Then, imagine, when I was told by Umino Iruka that the child that I had supposedly assigned him to walk to school that morning from this address was covered in blood, and attacked Uzumaki Naruto." With each sentence his tone got more of an edge to it. "Imagine my surprise, when I learn that Naruto is actually friends with this person, and justified her actions. Imagine, when I received word from the Inuzuka Clan head, that a red-headed student at the academy could track her, an experienced kunoichi, from down the hall and tried to get her son to stop bullying another student. And now," the Hokage stopped in front of Satsuki and kneeled down to her level. "Imagine my surprise when I find out, that this red-headed child that I had no knowledge of, was wearing a disguise. Who. Are. You?"

Satsuki's eyes were trained on the floor, her heart thumping against the inside of her ribcage, her body shaking, and her mind racing. The Hokage didn't know that she was here this morning. Who sent the message to Iruka-sensei? If it wasn't the Hokage, then why would someone impersonate them? Thoughts ran through her mind at a mile a minute as she refused to meet the gaze of the elder shinobi in front of her.

"Jiji! She do-"

"Naruto, I asked her the question. She needs to answer." The Hokage's suddenly kind voice overlapped Naruto's anxious tone.

 _ **"Breathe."**_

Satsuki took a deep breath and steadied her racing mind and trembling body.

" _You are transporting classified information that could destroy your country if it falls in to the wrong hands."_ Her father's words rang through her ears. _"Your mission is to get it back to the leader and without getting captured."_

Without a second's hesitation, her head shot up and her eyes met the eyes of the man kneeled down in front of her. His eyes, despite the kind tone just taken with Naruto, were cold and calculating, silently demanding an answer to all of his questions. Her eyes drifted from his up to the kanji for 'fire' on his hat.

"Fire," She whispered.

"Excuse me, child?"

"The Hokage, he's the leader of the village, in the fire nation, correct?" Satsuki dared ask a clarifying question. After receiving a curt nod, she continued. "I'm on a mission." She paused her delicate ears picking up the noise of something moving just inside the nearest window. "Please," She turned her head to the window, "I am of no danger to him, please, let me finish!" She pleaded her ears twitching, trying to hear further sounds of someone moving.

"They will not interfere, unless they feel it is necessary." He stood up to his full height, and motioned her to do the same. "So, you're on a mission?" There was a slight edge of amusement in his tone as he turned his back to her.

"I know it sounds amusing, Hokage-sama," she took a deep breath as she stood up and dared a look at Naruto. He had taken up resident on a bar stool in the kitchenette side of the room, his arms crossed and a small pout across his face. "But it unfortunately, is anything but."

The Hokage turned around to face the silver haired child and saw mixed emotions dancing across her eyes, a small frown barely visible through her dark mask.

"I was attacked." She ignored the small gasp that came from Naruto as she continued. "Sunday afternoon at 1500 hours, two men in black cloaks broke in to my home in attempts to kidnap me, for reasons that I am not aware of. With the assistance of Daisuke, a nin-ken of ours," her voice started shaking as images of the Great Dane danced through her mind, "I was able to escape the house and ran, trying to get away from them. In my haste I ran into my father, who was running errands that afternoon. He was wearing a hitai-ate, although I never knew him to be a shinobi, but it was without a doubt my father." A small smile graced her face as she took a deep breath, almost smelling the peppermint that had clung to her father like glue. "His hitai-ate was of the Leaf-village, this village." She paused for a moment seeing a curious look cross his face. "He looked at me and said _"Your identity has been compromised and you are in the enemy's territory."_ The mission that he gave me was transporting classified information to the leader, without being captured." Satsuki produced two scrolls with the Kanji for 'fire' from within one of her pockets, having been placed there after changing that morning.

The Hokage took a step closer to her, a frown creasing his brow.

"My attacker was getting close, so we had to move. My father led us to the walls of the village, using jutsu to keep the attacking men away from me. When we got to the wall I was almost caught by one of the men, but my father kept them away allowing us to get across the wall." She suppressed a shudder as she remembered the snake-like man's hands around her neck. "It was a trap. They were waiting for us and had cornered my father. They thought that they had taken care of him and had captured me. My father though, still apparently had a few tricks left up his sleeve, and distracted the two men. It all happened so fast. There were kunais coming at me, my dad getting ready to fight the two men, black designs wrapping their way around my hand, and then all of a sudden I'm here, confused, and passing out on the floor." Tears were streaming down her face as she finished her tale. "The next thing I know, Naru-kun and Iruka-sensei were here to take me to school." She left out a nervous chuckle trying to will the nerves and the impending sense of worry away.

Satsuki wiped her sleeve across her face to dry the falling tears. With a deep breath she took a step closer to the elderly gentleman in front of her. "I believe this was meant for you." She said, holding her hand out that held the two scrolls given to her by her father.

No sooner did he pluck the two scrolls from her hand, did one of them start glowing and unrolling.

"That sly man," The Hokage chuckled as he started to read the scroll, a sad smile crossing his features.

"What's going on?" Naruto had shaken himself from the shock of his friend's story and slid off the stool, now standing next to the two.

The Hokage ignored the question and opened up the scroll, taking his time to read over the contents.

What seemed like hours passed before the Hokage finally looked up from the scroll.

"Hayashi, Kumo." The Hokage called her alias. "Mission complete. Job well done." He said putting the two scrolls in to one of his many pockets. "Red hair and purple eyes, that is an interesting combination. Don't you think?"

Satsuki blushed and sheepishly looked up at the Hokage. "Naruto helped me come up with it," She mumbled. "She's the heroine in my favourite book. Naruto already looked like the hero, so we thought it was a good idea." She scratched the back of her head and closed her eyes in embarrassment. "Dad got a good chuckle out of it, and since I was never allowed to leave the house without a henge, it turned into one of my favourite disguises."

The Hokage seemed to hum in agreement to what was being said as he walked around the silver haired and blonde-haired children.

"Now, come-on children, we have somewhere we need to go." He motioned the two to follow him as he walked through the door, as if the conversation that had just taken place, had never happened to begin with.

"Wait, Jiji! Where are we going?!" Kumo could only stare at Naruto in shock as he bounced up in down in anticipation of where they would be going.

"You'll see, just follow me," There was a small chuckle as the Hokage started to walk down the stairs from the apartment to the street, the two children scurrying after him to keep up.

Kumo had never been to a hospital in her entire life, but she knew as soon as she walked in that she hated it.

The air reeked of stale blood and harsh chemicals that stung her nose with every breath she took. Everyone talked in low hushed whispers and heels clacked quickly across the floor as doctors-medical ninjas-scurried from patient to patient. The rooms were a stark white colour with two beds dressed in white sheets, and the two windows on the far wall had, once again, stark white curtains.

Kumo sat on the edge of one of the beds with a scowl across her face as she fidgeted with the hem of the hospital issued shirt that she was forced in to changing in to.

"Why do I have to do this again?" Kumo huffed, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Every student in the academy needs to have a physical done before their first day," The Hokage stated plainly walking in to the room with someone else in tow. "And you already started your first day without it, so-"

"I have to get this 'physical' thing done." Kumo mumbled in response.

"Exactly. Now Kumo-chan, Naruto-kun, this is Itou, Kaito."

The ninja who walked in behind the Hokage gave a small smile as he put on a pair of latex gloves.

"Hokage-sama has filled me in on everything that has happened, the last few days. You are a very brave girl." He flashed a small smile. "Don't worry your secret is safe with me."

"Kaito is my personal medical advisor, so he is to be trusted." The Hokage added seeing the suspicious look on Kumo's face.

Kumo took a moment to adjust the surgical mask that she had covering the bottom half of her face, before sighing loudly and allowing her shoulders to slump. "You could have at least allowed me to wear my own clothes."

"You should be glad they're not making you wear the dress with the hole in the backside," Naruto laughed in response, causing the adults to chuckle as Kumo's mouth dropped open in shock.

"Alright, Naruto-kun, we are going to wait out in the hallway while Kaito does his checkup of Kumo-chan," The Hokage made a motion to leave the room and Naruto faltered directing a worried look between Kumo and the Hokage. "She will be in no danger. I trust Kaito completely. Let's go talk about your day in school today. It must have been pretty eventful, finally having your best friend join you in class today."

"But-"

"It's alright Naru." Kumo mumbled in to the itchy surgical mask. "If anything happens, I'll just scream really loudly." She started to laugh, a glint of mischief appearing in her eyes.

Naruto froze in his spot and shuddered. That was not something he wanted to hear again, even if it was through the door.

"YOU WOULDN'T DARE!" Naruto shouted wagging his finger at Kumo.

Naruto received no response other than a one-eyed wink. "Kaito-san!" Naruto turned, this time pointing his finger at the medical ninja. "You don't want her to scream. No-one does. So, don't do anything stupid."

Kaito chuckled nervously as he ushered the blonde into the hallway with the Hokage, shutting the door behind the two.

"So, Kumo-chan." The man smiled at her as he walked back to her sitting location. "I'm just going to ask you a few questions and then were going to make sure your healthy enough to be preparing for the life of a shinobi. Is that alright?"

There was a long pause as Kumo studied the gentleman in front of her. He had long dark brown hair that was contained in a holder fixed in a low ponytail, and soft emerald green eyes. He wore the standard shinobi uniform, with a white lab coat overtop of his chuunin vest that ended just above his calves, and his hitai-ate fixed across his forehead.

Kumo blinked her eyes and gave a small nod allowing him to start.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Date of birth?"

"October tenth," Kaito raised an eyebrow while writing her answers down.

"Have you ever been sick?"

"No."

"Broken bones?"

"No."

Kaito hummed as he finished up his questioning and walked up to Kumo.

"So far, so good Kumo. Now we just have to run a few checks the old-fashioned way, since we don't have your previous medical files, okay?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No." Kaito chuckled and motioned her to stand up, which she begrudgingly obeyed. "Don't worry, I'll tell you what I'm doing the whole way."

The medical ninja then proceed to walk her through an eye exam, a check of her heart, and her spine before motioning her to sit back down on the bed.

"All that's left now is to check your chakra network." Kaito paused seeing the suspicious look once again appear on Kumo's face. "I'll I'm going to do is use my medical nin-jutsu to make sure there are no abnormalities." Kaito focused his chakra to his hand it started to glow a soft green colour. "Here, touch my hand and you'll see it won't hurt."

Kumo narrowed her eyes at the ninja in front of her, and looked from his eyes to his green glowing hand.

"Have I done anything to hurt you up to this point?" he waited for a shy head shake from Kumo before continuing. "So, you'll have to trust me on this one last thing. What do you think, can you trust me?" Kaito asked flashing her a small grin.

Kumo hesitantly reached her hand up to touch Kaito's but recoiled halfway there as if she had touched an open flame.

That snake guy was from the leaf village and he had tried to kidnap her. Her father had worn a hitai-ate from the leaf, she trusted him, no? Well and there was Iruka-sensei, and he had been extremely nice, despite not knowing anything about her. Mizuki-sensei though, well he didn't seem as if he should be trusted at all.

Kumo internally groaned as she calculated the odds. At this point she had about a fifty percent chance that he wasn't actually trying to kill her.

She let out a small whistle and tightly closed her eyes as she reached her hand up to meet Kaito-san's.

Her hand gingerly touched his as she prepared for the worst.

A moment passed and nothing had happened so she snapped her eyes open to see everything still in place and herself in one piece.

"Happy?" Kaito smiled, reminding Kumo briefly of her father.

"Hmmmm," She hummed in response before sliding back and unceremoniously falling back on the bed, allowing the borrowed light blue shirt that she was wearing to reveal the bottom portion of her stomach.

Kaito started his assessment of the red-headed child in front of him, making quick work until stopped mid-assessment over the girl's stomach.

He stood above her, his eyes widening at what he was noticing. For an eight-year-old child, she had an enormous set of reserves. Easily Jounin, if not higher. Up till now, he was chalking it up to an over-driven shinobi parent. Shinobi parents were known to start training their offspring extremely early, but this was exceedingly high, even if that was the case.

In fact, the only other child he had known with reserves that high was-

Kaito Itou took a deep breath and shook the thoughts from his head before focusing once more on the task at hand.

He looked back down at Kumo and noticed the pushed-up shirt, when something caught his eye. Trailing across the skin from underneath the shirt was a dark black mark, almost as if someone had spilled ink across her stomach, and had refused to wash it off.

"Kumo," the name came out quick and short, causing the girl to jerk herself up into a sitting position. "Did you spill ink on yourself?" Kaito silently cursed as the question fell out of his mouth without his permission.

The girl in question gave a funny look in response.

"I mean," he rubbed a hand across his face. "What's on your stomach?" The question had less tact than he had wanted, but it would have to do.

"Oh, that!" Kumo laughed, "It's just a birthmark. I forget it's there most of the time."

Kaito watched as the girl scratched at the back of her head in embarrassment and he felt his heart drop.

"Do you mind if I take a peak?" Upon seeing her curious look he added quickly "It just needs to go on the records is all"

Kumo nodded hesitantly. Her father had always told her that no-one could see her face, but he never said anything about her stomach, so this wouldn't hurt anything, would it?

Kumo pulled her shirt up to show off her birthmark and Kaito did all that he could do to keep from audibly gasping.

On her stomach, situated in a circle around her belly button was not a birthmark, but rather a very complex seal. He could only pick out pieces that looked even slightly familiar as he copied the pattern down as quickly and accurately as he could without raising suspicion of the child.

He couldn't even pin-point what part of the seal was familiar to him, he was no fuinjutsu specialist, causing most of the seal to look like a foreign language. Whatever part of it he recognized, it was almost as if it was copy and pasted from the original location to here, blending in so well that it was almost impossible for him to pick out where he had seen it before. The seal wove in intricate circles around her belly button and as the chakra powering the seal pulsed, he swore he could see vines snaking its way in and around the main circle.

Around the main circle was a second one, which had what appeared to be kanji stretching away from the center, but he was at a loss as to what they said, or what its main purpose was supposed to be. He did though, have a very deep sinking worry as to what it was.

Kaito mentally sighed and shot Kumo a wide smile as he continued to hide the emotions running rampant through his mind.

"All done here!" Kaito dropped his clipboard down to his side. "I'll let Naruto back in while I let Hokage-sama know that you are all clear."

Kumo nodded her head absentmindedly as she dropped the shirt back into place.

As soon as the door opened up, Naruto came bounding back into the room chittering about his conversations he had been having with the Hokage.

Kumo smiled politely, only half listening to her best friend as she stretched her sense out to just behind the closed door.

"Hokage-sama, we may have a problem," She could hear the whispered voice of Kaito-san.

"Jiji said that he would take us to Ichiraku's later!"

"Seal on her stomach,"

" _A seal on my stomach_ _?"_

"Until you've had their ramen!"

"It contains?" Kumo frowned only hearing part of the question.

"One time I had SO much ramen-"

"Hokage-sama, you said her village burned to the ground, I don't understand-" Her village hadn't burned to the ground. Did the Hokage lie to Kaito-san?

"But I still go back, and eat it every day!"

"Paper-work, classified." Her eyebrows shot up, why was her information classified?

"There are so many choices of ramen, I bet-"

Kumo heard footsteps as one of the voices walked away, leaving one heartbeat gently drumming outside of the room

"Minoru-kun. I thought you both had died on that fateful night years ago." Kumo focused completely on the voice outside the door. "Yet you were keeping her safe all these years." She heard him sigh on the other side of the door, "I don't know what you did to her."

" _My father never did anything to me!_ _"_

"But I hope for her sake, that you are safe. Please, come home. Alive."

I hope y'all enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

I do not own Naruto!

Enjoy!

Three months. It had been three long agonizing months since Kumo ended up in The Village Hidden in the Leaves. Sure, she was starting to love the village that she had been unceremoniously dumped in, but it wasn't Kirigakure.

She missed her water filled village and how it would rain every day. She missed the grey stone buildings and how the civilians had managed to make each building look different despite being built the exact same way. She missed the friendly villagers, and how they always went out of their way to say hello to her even though she was covered from head to toe in clothing and they couldn't make out any distinguishable features. She missed being treated like she wasn't different from anybody else.

She missed the Great Dane that she had grown to love since the day she was born. She missed the way that Daisuke would come and snuggle up next to her in the evenings before bed, wanting her to scratch the backs of his ears. She missed the way that he always seemed to know when something was bothering her, whether she had mentioned it or not. And most of all, she missed how he was always there by her side whenever her father was away on errands as if guarding her from trouble.

She missed the peppermint sticks that her father kept in jars on the counters, and how her father was almost always chewing on one, making him smell as if he had bathed in peppermints. She missed how he would come home from a long day of work and a smile would instantly appear on his face washing away the small frown that had adorned his face when he thought she wasn't looking. She missed his ninja lessons, and how he was always firm in his teachings even though she could obviously tell it hurt him to have to teach her those things. She missed his slouched posture, and how he always had his hands in his pockets and more than anything his loud, almost room shaking laugh. She even missed how distrustful her father was of strangers, almost as if he was afraid that one would snatch her away from him. But what she missed most of all, was how she remembered her dad before the rouge ninja had tried to kidnap her.

Now whenever she thought of her father all she could picture was him in that shinobi gear. The last day that she had seen him he was wearing black pants, with white tape wrapped around his left leg with a kunai holder strapped around it, and he had a mesh shirt on underneath an unzipped dark green jacket with a high collar. He was wearing what she had come to know as standard issue shinobi sandals and he had a hitai-ate with bleach stains marring the fabric wrapped around his forehead.

She still couldn't believe that he had hidden being a shinobi from her. Looking back, as much as it hurt, it did make some sense that he was a shinobi. He was gone an awful lot, and he did know way more about being a shinobi than a civilian should ever have known. " _You must always see the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings._ " Her father liked to tell her that often during their lessons. Maybe this was all part of one of his lessons. He did like to turn EVERYTHING in to a shinobi lesson after all.

She just wished he would hurry up and come back and tell her what this was all about, and why he decided to dump her in this village. Well, he probably wouldn't giver her a straight answer anyways. He would most likely wave her off and say "It was necessary," and not give her a further answer.

Maybe he had enemies. Maybe he was dangerous. Maybe-just maybe-he was actually a missing nin from the Leaf Village and wanted to make others believe that he was still loyal to it to trick them into believing he was trustworthy!

Well, that last one couldn't actually be a viable choice. She remembered how fondly the Hokage had spoken of her father that day months ago after her doctor's appointment. Sandaime-sama sounded sincere in his wishing of him to return home alive, too much so for it to have simply been for him wanting to put her father in jail when he returns.

It would, though, explain why the Hokage was having her followed every day. It seemed to be a team of people. Only one person a day, and it rotated between four different people. They didn't do a very good job of it though since she was able to pinpoint them, or slip out of their sight constantly. Naruto insisted that slipping out of their sight was an easy thing to do though, as he had done it frequently while he was younger.

Maybe, they allowed them to slip out of their view and away from them though. She had over the last three months noticed how this village treated her blonde friend. They would call him names under their breaths, and scurry away from him when he walked past. Children were shielded from him as if he would bite and were ordered by their parents not to talk to him. Store owners would increase their prices solely for him, and if that didn't deter him, then they would do all they could to only sell him rotten or spoiled food.

Kumo had caught on to this and would go into the stores to purchase the necessary things for the both of them. She did well with this at the very beginning, and went in to each store with no issues. A well-placed lie here and there secured a cover story as to why a young child was shopping without the aide of her parents, it was a shinobi village after all, and no-one questioned her parents being on a 'mission'. At least, until someone saw her meeting up with Naruto halfway home.

Neither of them were hurt too much, but the groceries were spilled across the ground and ruined. It happened so quickly that Kumo hadn't the chance to get a good look at the men, but she could still hear the one's voice whispering in her ear.

" _You better watch out. That pretty red hair might just get you into trouble one day."_

There was a threat and a promise, laced in that phrase and it frightened her. After that she had taken to wearing her long black trench coat over her regular clothing again. She wore it clasped round the front, the bottom reaching mid-calf and the hood pulled far over her head barely leaving her eyes visible.

Word seemed to get out after that incident though, and despite what she wore, the owners always knew who she was and she was then extended the same treatment as Naruto. 'Demon' and 'Demon spawn' 'hellion' 'beast' and 'monster' where whispered in no particular order about the two of them as they walked by.

Kumo and Naruto wouldn't let this get to them though, and had vowed to be the greatest ninjas that they could be. No matter what was said, they always responded in kindness and sincerity following the teachings of Minoru: 'Treat others how you wish to be treated.' It hadn't worked yet to make the civilians treat them better, but they were at least trying to be the bigger person, no?

Despite how the villagers treated them, she knew that one day it would get better. Her father had after all, promised that he would catch back up with her, and he always kept his promises. So, soon, he would be waltzing in to the village with that large grin across his face, and Daisuke would be trailing behind him. Her tou-san would scoop her and Naruto up and make them a home-cooked meal, and put those ruddy villagers in their place. He would pick up their training and tell them how impressed he was that they were keeping up with his regiment while he was out on his 'mission' as her and Naruto had come to call it. Things would pick up as if nothing had happened and they would be one big family again.

"Kumo!" The girl in question jerked her head up at an astonishing speed, her eyes meeting the obsidian eyes of Iruka-Sensei. "You really do need to stop spacing out like this," His eyes instantly got softer, "It is your turn."

The red head thought for a moment, trying to figure out what her teacher was talking about. She heard her classmates around her start to giggle and the pieces clicked together.

"Oh," She mumbled picking herself up off the ground where she had been sitting. "Taijutsu practice. That's right." She looked across the group of students which was split down the center, separating those that had already completed their spars from those who hadn't. "Who am I sparring against?"

The brunette gave her a sad smile before calling out her opponent "Inuzuka, Kiba!"

Kumo and Kiba had not had the most agreeable time since her joining the academy. The Inuzuka was still sore about her having gotten him into trouble that first day she was in the academy, and did everything possible to make her life torture.

"Haha! Akamaru, guess we get to fight against Tomato paste! This is going to be easy!"

Kumo rolled her eyes as she walked towards the open area used for sparring. "It's been three months, Dog-breath, one would think you could come up with a better insult by now."

"Just wait till we wipe the floor with you, you'll wish you never messed with us!" Kiba growled, Akamaru barking in agreement as the duo walked in to the sparring ring.

"Calm down, Kiba." Iruka stepped between the two students. "Now this is a taijutsu spar only. First one to leave the ring or to be knocked out, loses."

Kumo took her time looking around at the other students before acknowledging her teacher. There were significantly fewer students on her side of the ring than on the other side of the field containing the finished students. It looked like Naruto was still waiting for his match as well as Abe Noriko, Uchiha Sasuke, Yamamoto Nanami, Aburame Shino.

On the other side she could see the students that had already completed their matches lounging back and watching in half hearted interest at what was going on, most taking more interest in what their friends were talking about than the match that would be taking place in a few short moments.

Kumo finally looked up to Iruka and nodded her head in understanding to his given instructions. Kiba nodded his head in agreement as well and Akamaru jumped off Kiba's shoulders on to the ground.

Taking a good look at her opponent Kumo shook her shoulders, slowly sinking down into her favourite taijutsu stance, one that was handed down through her family, and grinned to herself ecstatic at the thought of practicing her taijutsu style on someone other than Naruto.

Kiba growled lowly as he followed suit and sunk down in to his taijutsu stance, Akamaru crouching into a defensive position next to him.

Kumo put her hand up showing the sign of confrontation to Kiba, her head cocked in slight confusion. His stance seemed familiar to her, it definitely wasn't the academy style, but she couldn't quite put a finger on why she recognized it.

She quickly shook her head free of the thought as she watched Iruka raise his hands in preparation to signal the start of the spar. Taking a deep breath, she focused on the Inuzuka in front of her.

"Hajime!"

Hope you enjoyed!

Come back next time to see what happens between Kumo and Kiba! :D


	7. Chapter 7

Here we are! As always, I do not own Naruto.

Enjoy!

From the moment that Iruka announced the start of the match, Kumo was put on the defense. Kiba was very much like Naruto was when she had first met him-hit first and ask questions later. This also meant that it gave her a small upside in this match.

"I bet you don't even know how to fight!" Kiba swung his right fist, aiming for Kumo's face. "And I'm sure those so-called tracking skills of yours are a fluke, just like your dodging abilities!"

Kumo brought her arm up and blocked his incoming fist only to have to drop to the ground to dodge his foot as he countered her block. She placed her hands on the ground behind her in a fluid motion and jerked her foot upwards in hopes of catching her opponent in the chin, frowning slightly when her foot didn't contact anything.

"Bark!"

Kumo heard Akamaru barking and slammed her body to the ground and rolled towards the center of the ring before jumping back up to face the Inuzuka.

Kiba once again charged at Kumo in full force, his fist slightly behind his head as he tried to land a punch on the red head, but missing as Kumo wove in and out waiting for the best moment to strike.

"There's no way you're going to graduate, if all you can do is dodge." Kiba growled, this time trying to push her towards the edge of the ring surrounding them.

"Than what does that say about you if you can't land a punch on one little girl?" Kumo shot back, finally throwing a punch of her own, only to be blocked by the growling boy.

"You can't even throw a decent punch!" Kiba laughed kicking his leg towards her with such force that she barely had time to dodge it.

The two spent the next few minutes trading punches, Kumo weaving in and out of Kiba's attacks with such grace, one would think she was dancing. They both eventually stopped back in the center of the ring, Kiba breathing harder than his opponent.

Kumo stole a quick look at the students on the sidelines, whom she could tell were getting more bored as time wore on, the few of them who had been paying attention having lost interest. She looked back at the Inuzuka as he spoke up once more.

"You know," he started, a smirk working its way across his face. "I bet your dad isn't even on a mission."

Kumo narrowed her eyes and lowered herself back in to her taijutsu stance, not liking where Kiba was going. Her feet were situated shoulder width apart with her left foot pointing towards her opponent. Her right arm was crossed across her body in front of her chest, and her left arm was held forwards, both arms bent at the elbow, and her fingers spread apart and slightly curled as small sparks of electricity started to bounce between the tips. Her heart rate increased as she took a deep breath trying not to let what Kiba was going to say affect her.

"Yeah," Kiba showed a toothy grin as he too settled in to his taijutsu stance. His body was square to Kumo, his right foot slightly behind his body. His right arm pulled behind his head, and his left arm pointing towards the ground, his hands opened and flexed creating the illusion of him having claws. "In fact, I bet he left you here. Alone. On purpose." Kumo's heart rate quickened as she tried to ignore what he was saying, "I mean being as pitiful of a fighter you are, I'm sure you were too much of an embarrassment!"

Kumo took a step forward only to freeze, hearing some of the other students laugh in agreement. She turned her head and glared at them, some of the students shrinking back under her gaze. Turning her head back to Kiba she gritted her teeth as she met a foot in the face, causing her to fly back with such force she went tumbling head over heel towards the edge of the ring.

She could hear Kiba hooting and hollering as well as Naruto shouting "No!" as she poured chakra into her hands and dug them in to the ground, trying to create enough friction to stop herself before she left the ring.

"See, you don't even know that you shouldn't turn your back on your enemy!"

Kumo gritted her teeth, skin tearing off the palms of her hands as she came grinding to a stop in a hand stand mere centimeters from the edge of the ring. Turning her head up from facing the ground she saw Kiba facing the crowd and bowing as some of the students cheered for him. Making sure to be as quiet as possible she slowly lowered herself to the ground, making sure to keep her feet in front of the line.

Her feet back on the ground, she took off towards Kiba, electricity dancing on her fingertips. She got four feet behind him when Akamaru started barking alerting Kiba of her advanced, giving him enough warning to jump out of the way.

"Couldn't just stay down, Tomato-paste?"

Kumo didn't respond to him, and charged again this time with enough speed that her hand hit its mark, causing Kiba to growl in pain.

"Ouch! What the hell was that!" Kiba grabbed a hold of his shoulder jumping away from her as a pained frown graced his features.

Kumo just raised an eyebrow in response and closed the distance between the two of them bringing their fight in for more hand-to-hand combat than it had been so far. Kumo succeeded in getting several more hits in, each time the brunette boy hissing in pain as the electricity that danced through her fingers zapped him, before he finally managed to jump away and make distance again between the two of them.

"I'M SICK OF YOU!" Kiba growled from his position on the far side of the ring from her.

"What, scared of getting beaten by a girl?" Kumo snapped back, not allowing herself to drop out of her stance.

"Like I'm going to allow myself to be beaten by a girl!" Kiba brought his hands together and started to make hand signs. "FANG OVER FANG!"

Akamaru jumped up on top of Kiba's back and the two of them turned into rapidly spinning drills heading straight towards their target: Kumo.

The world around Kumo seemed to slow down as she saw the two rapidly spinning towards her. She flexed her legs to jump out of their way, only to widen her eyes in surprise as she found she couldn't move. She quickly looked around to find an alternate way out, her heart rate quickening with every passing second.

She saw Iruka, a horrified look across his face as he ran in slow motion towards her. She saw Mizuki at the back of the crowd, with a small twisted grin on his face, and his arms crossed against his chest. Naruto was in the process of running towards her, panic written across his face. And there was the boy who sat next to her in class-Shikamaru- was sitting in a kneeling position with his hands brought together in the rat symbol. Confusion ran through her mind as she continued to look at Shikamaru, his eyes were glassy, and his shadow- his shadow was stretching further from his body than what was normal. Her eyes followed his shadow, and her confusion turned into a cross between panic, realization, and fear, as she realized that his shadow was connected to hers.

Flashback-no-jutsu

"Daddy!" a five-year-old Satsuki called, looking up from the book that she was reading.

"What's up, pup?" Her father called from inside the kitchen, his voice traveling as he came to meet her in the living room.

"This book!" She grabbed both sides of the book 'Tales of the Henohenomoheji' and held it up for him to see. "The people in it, they're so cool!" She giggled and twisted the book back towards herself and laid it in her lap.

"Oh?" Minoru's eyes turned upwards as he smiled at his young charge and motioned for her to move over to let him sit next to her.

Satsuki eagerly moved to the side, allowing her father to sit down next to her, and she promptly crawled in to his lap and made herself comfortable.

"Yeah! It's about Omoidegakure no Sato, The Village Hidden in the Memories. It's a Hidden Village, with ninjas just like Kirigakure!" Satsuki paused, touching her chin in thought as a small frown graced her mask free face. "Well, I guess it would be, if it was a real village." She made a small shrugging motion before continuing in her tale. "Well this village it has all sorts of shinobi who can do amazing things! There's a clan who uses trained dogs to help them fight, and another that uses this thing that lets them, like, know what their opponent is going to do next!" Satsuki continued weaving the tale of her story to her father waving her arms as she told of what adventures the characters had partaken in so far in the book, before stopping abruptly. "And then I just got to a part where some one was able to control their shadow!" Her eyes were wide as she flopped over sideways, hanging off of her father's lap on to the couch.

"Their shadow?" There was an amused lilt in his voice as he urged her to go on.

"Yeah! His team was cornered!" Satsuki quickly picked her self back up in to a sitting position and jumped off of her father's lap and stopped once she was standing in front of him. "His team had taken an EXTREMELY important mission for the Yumekage. They couldn't fail. But Inei-san wasn't going to sacrifice his comrades. He was worried, but he thought through all the possibilities. LIKE ALL THE POSSIBILITIES." Satsuki made a grand sweeping motion with her arms before continuing. "And he finally came up with a plan. It wasn't foolproof, but he knew with the help of his comrades, that they could do it. They fought for HOURS, and finally Inei-san and his team FINALLY turned the tables and cornered the enemy. ' _I wish I didn't have to do this, boys.'"_ Satsuki imitated how she interpreted Inei-san's voice, gruff and low, and ended with a small chuck. " _'But it's for the benefit of not just our village, but the world.'_ And then-" Satsuki brought her hands up in front of her. "He put his hands together in a symbol, and his shadow attached to the enemies and they couldn't move. Inei-san's shadow traveled up their bodies and-" Satsuki made a quick wringing motion in front of her and dropping unceremoniously to the floor "He, like, snapped their necks!" Satsuki picked her head up from the floor and looked up to her father who was still on the couch.

"Well," her father chucked lightly, "I guess it's a good thing that it's just a story, and no-one can actually manipulate their shadows, huh?"

KAI

Shikamaru could manipulate shadows just like the character Inei-san from her book. This was not good.

Kumo looked from Shikamaru back to the incoming figure of Kiba and Akamaru. She struggled against the shadows holding her in place but was unable to get them to budge, and looking back to Iruka-Sensei, who was no-where close enough to save her from her impending doom.

' _What do I do?'_ Satsuki thought to herself, her panic rising to high levels. ' _I can't die, not here! Ugh! If only I could move!'_ Thoughts raced through her mind, unable to give her a way to fully formulate any plan as Kiba came closer and closer to her. As her thoughts continued to race, she felt an immense burning sensation spiraling out from her stomach, causing her to close her eyes and grimace at the pain as Kiba came inches from her face.

The crowd looked on in a mix of horror and fascination waiting to see how the red-head was going to get herself out of her current situation, when, without the ability for Kumo to move, Kiba hit his mark. There was a collective gasp as time seemed to freeze and Kumo suddenly erupted into a thousand silver and red flowers, her body no-where to be found.

The flowers gracefully floated to the ground and not a sound was heard throughout the group of students as everyone tried to process what had just happened. The ninjas-in-training sat in shock staring at the flowers as the wind slowly picked up and carted the flowers away scattering them in the wind.

After what seemed like hours, one student finally got up the courage to say what everyone was thinking: "What the hell just happened?"

Kumo slowly opened her eyes as the burning sensation in her stomach slowly dissipated away, and confusion graced her face as she took in her surroundings.

It appeared that the sun had already set. The moon was full, and shining at full brightness as it sat high in the sky. She was standing in the middle of the woods with tall trees lush with foliage surrounded her on every side. She could see the gnarled roots of the trees twisting around and over each other causing the trees to grow in tilted angles, and the moonlight caused the trees to cast menacing shadows across patchy-grass ground.

"What happened?" she murmured to herself as she walked up to one of the gnarled trees and reached her hand out to touch it. "Where am I?"

She touched the cool bark of the tree only to instantly pull it back as she heard a low growl echoing through the forest.

"What was that?"

 _"Why. Don't. You. Come. Find. Out._ " A smooth, low voice echoed across the woods, and Kumo twisted her head in every direction trying to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from.

"You know what?" Kumo spoke out loud, crossing her arms across her chest. "I think I'll pass. My dad always taught me to never talk to strangers."

A low laugh rang across the clearing, sending shivers down Kumo's spine. " _And look how far that has gotten you so far_."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" she asked, raising her eybrow as she backed up.

" _Nothing to worry your pretty little head about._ " The voice again laughed through the trees.

"Yeah, well, I think I'm over this, so I'm just going to leave." She nervously put her hands behind her head and turned and walked away from the direction that she had finally pinpointed the voice as coming from.

" _No, worries, you will be back after all._ " The voice spoke with an overly confident lilt. " _I made sure of it._ "

Kumo paused and turned back towards the voice.

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

" _I'm done with you child. Get out._ "

"Wait, no!" Kumo took off running towards the voice at full speed, trying to keep herself from tripping over the twisted roots.

" _By the way, I would duck if I were you_."

"Duck? What do you mean by that?"

Before Kumo even had the chance to finish her question, the landscape around her started to disappear. The branches of the trees seemed to droop, and the colour dripped from the leaves in huge water droplets, as the scenery around her seemingly melted in to the ground blow her, slowly blurring her vision, and making her dizzy, causing her to close her eyes.

" _Du~uck._ " The voice echoed once more through her head in a sing song pattern, and without recognizing her actions, Kumo bent backwards. As the palms of her hands hit the ground just behind her head, she hissed in pain, and as she felt the air shift just inches above where her stomach was, where her upper half had been only seconds earlier, she kicked her foot upwards as hard as she could surprising herself when her foot contacted something.

Kumo continued to use her momentum to flip herself back up onto her feet in a standing position just in time to raise her arm to block a fist that came towards her face.

"What the?" Kumo muttered as she continued to dodge the fists as they came at her, not giving her a chance to fully grasp what was going on. Kumo was forced to take steps back as the person attacking her never relented on their attacks.

"Ouch!" Kumo hissed, as something jabbed her in the right shoulder, causing her arm to drop limp at her side. She stole a glance at her now useless appendage and then behind her to see what caused it as she dodged another incoming kick.

A frown crossed her face as she focused chakra to her left hand, electricity jumping from the tips. Taking a deep breath as she jumped back from the onslaught of attacks she grabbed ahold of her right shoulder and forced a small amount of her electricity into the useless appendage. She held back a shout as the electricity ran through her arm, and she slowly flexed her fingers as some of the feeling returned.

She sank down in to the opening stance of her taijutsu style and looked back up to her attackers. "Why are you attacking me?" her voice was cool, and calm, complete opposite of what was occurring internally.

She held a calculating gaze across the area she was in, and the people who were occupying the space with her. She was in an open field, with a forest on two of the sides, and the other two had different paths leading in to the village. There were weapons littered across the field, large craters in the dirt, and several trees were in pieces: everything about it screamed training ground.

There were four other people aside from her in the field. There was a girl with brown eyes who had her brown hair in twin buns. She wore a pink shirt with yellow clasps, and blue pants that were taped at the right thigh and a holster strapped to it. She was perched on a nearby tree, her head propped up on her hand as she looked as if she was uninterested in what had just gone on.

There was a boy with long brown hair, and pale white eyes. He wore a beige short sleeved shirt and brown shorts that were taped just as the girls' pants were, and his right arm and right leg were completely wrapped up in white tape. His arms were crossed across his chest, and he wore a frown across his face as if he were annoyed at everything that had just transpired.

The last two people looked almost identical. They both wore green jumpsuits, with bright orange leg warms around their calves. They had bowl cuts and big bushy eyebrows that reminded Kumo of the poisonous caterpillars she was always warned about touching. The biggest difference about the two of them was one of the two was older. The older of the two wore the standard Chuunin vest and stood a decent length from the younger one with his hands were on his hips, a mischievous look gracing his face. The younger stood no more than five feet away from Kumo and had his arms limp at his sides, and his mouth was gaping open almost like a fish.

"Do I need to ask again?" Kumo asked, an edge in her voice that she didn't know she possessed. She stepped closer to the jumpsuit wearing ninja, the electricity now crackling loudly between her fingers.

Almost as if someone had flipped a switch, the flabbergasted look was gone from his face and he walked closer to Kumo.

"YOU ARE A MOST YOUTHFUL OPPONENT!"

"A what?" annoyance seeped its way in to Kumo's voice as she took a step backwards.

"THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY IN YOU! I HAVE NEVER SEEN SOMEONE SHAKE OFF ONE OF NEJI'S ATTACK SO EASILY BEFORE!" Instantly the boy was bouncing around her and inspecting her from every angle as if she was on exhibit.

"You know, he does have a point." The kunoichi sitting up in the tree spoke up as she jumped down from her perch. "How did you do it?"

Kumo looked between the three with distrust, not sure of what exactly was going on. Deciding against answering their question, she asked one of her own. "Where am I?"

"You don't know where you are?!" The boy in green exclaimed as if the idea was unfathomable. "Why you are in the Village Hidden in the Leaves!"

"Lee, she could be a spy." The boy with the pale eyes spoke up, distrust clearly written across his features.

"I'm from Konoha," Kumo stated, looking lazily back at the boy before turning her attention back to the boy who reminded her so much of Naruto. "I go to the academy. How did I get here?"

"YOU'RE FROM THE ACADEMY?!" Once again, the bushy browed ninja shouted as if it had to be impossible.

"That is most intriguing!" A deep voice echoed through the clearing, and the older of the two jump suited ninjas finally entered the conversation. He walked up behind his doppelganger and put his hand on the younger one's shoulder. "That was a very advanced technique that you showed for someone of your age! Your will of fire burns bright!"

"What are you talking about?" Kumo asked straightening herself up to her full height as her arm once more dropped limply to her side.

"You truly do not know?" The concern across the boy's face was true as he stepped closer to her. "You appeared in an explosion of red and silver flowers!"

"I what?" confusion crossed her eyes, before she narrowed them asking a further question. "Then why did you attack me?"

"Neji-san and I were in the middle of a training spar, and you appeared right in the middle of it! It was not our intention to harm you, right Neji?" The boy in green looked pointedly to the long-haired brunette boy behind her.

"Lee is correct. If we had wished to harm you, then you would most likely be dead." Neji's voice held an even tone so much so that it almost came across as cocky.

"Oh, come-on Neji, she's just a little girl. You wouldn't really have hurt her." The girl in pink spoke up.

"I would have if she were a spy, Tenten. I am a ninja of the Leaf Village, and I will act as such. Even if that means harming children." The boy leaned back on the tree behind him and closed his eyes, signaling that he was done with the conversation.

"You don't have to be such a stick in the mud." Tenten pouted at Neji before turning her attention back to Kumo. "How did you fix your arm from Neji's attack?"

"Electricity can do many amazing things," Kumo looked back down at her still limp arm. "It was a temporary fix that I was taught at a young age, but it did not fix the problem. Neji-san, was it?" the boy in questioned opened one eye in response to her question. "Can you please properly fix my arm?"

The boy moodily walked from the tree up behind Kumo and with a small "Hn" quickly jabbed at Kumo's shoulder.

The red head smiled in relief as the feeling fully returned to her arm, and she turned around and gave a small bow to Neji. "Thank you for your assistance."

"Now, Miss Academy Student, how did you manage to appear in an explosion of flowers" The older ninja asked her kneeling down to her level.

"Gai-sensei asks the most appropriate question! How did you, and who are you?" Lee semi-echoed the so-called Gai-sensei.

"My name is Hayashi, Kumo, and I'm sorry, Shinobi-san, but I don't know what you are talking about with flowers or appearing anywhere. One moment, I'm stuck by a shadow with a human drill coming at my face, and then the next-" Kumo paused briefly as she carefully formulated her next sentence. "And then the next, I'm dodging attacks from, I'm guessing, Lee-san and Neji-san."

"Kumo, you say?" a wistful look briefly crossed Gai's face, "Well I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for all of this!" a large grin spread across his face as he stuck a thumb up in the air. "Until that explanation can be found though, we must get you back to the academy! I'm sure your teacher is worried about you!"

Realizing that the older ninja was correct in his assumptions, Iruka-Sensei was probably worrying himself sick, she nodded her head in agreement.

"Tenten, Neji, Lee!" Each student stood up at attention as their names were called. "That is enough training for today, you are all dismissed. Meet back here at 0430 for warm-ups!"

Tenten grumbled in agreeance as she started to walk away from the group, and Neji simply hmphed as he too walked away.

"Kumo-san!" Lee said exuberantly holding his hand out for her to shake. "You were a worthy opponent for one who has yet to graduate the academy." Kumo reluctantly stuck her hand out to shake hands with him, "We shall soon see who's will of fire burns the brightest, rival!" with that the boy dropped Kumo's hand and took off running after his other two teammates, leaving Kumo with their sensei-Gai.

"I'm sure I could find my own way back, Gai-sensei. You did not have to call your training short on my account." Kumo bowed her head respectfully to the older shinobi.

"Nonsense! It is my honor to escort one with as much youth, and will of fire as you back to the academy!" A smile crossed his face as he started walking towards town. "Come, Kumo-chan, tell me about yourself."

I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. Till next time.


	8. Chapter 8

I do not own Naruto!

Enjoy!

"Naruto!" Satsuki whined as her best friend walked through the door with her father. "You took SO LONG to get here!" She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes as she walked up to the blonde. "What did you do?"

"Hehehe," Naruto scratched the back of his head and smiled back at the girl in front of him. "Iruka-sensei just stopped me after class and was asking me questions."

"I hope it's not because you are in trouble again, Naruto-kun." Minoru stated flatly as he took off his shoes and entered the house.

"Hey!" He shouted pointing at his surrogate father's retreating form. "I have not gotten caught in ages! He just wanted to tell me that he was proud of my improvement!" He kicked off his shoes and entered the house running after the older gentleman. "He said that he couldn't believe how much better I've gotten!" a huge grin found its way across Naruto's face and he pointed his thumb towards himself. "I'll get the Hokage position in no-time at all!"

"Really?" an amused smile appeared on Minoru's face as he stopped preparing snacks for the two children in his house. "He actually said that?"

"Well," Naruto's grin deflated as he sat down at the kitchen bar next to Satsuki, "Most of it. All except the Hokage part at least." Naruto slammed the palms of his hands on the counter, and stood up on the side of his chair. "But it's true! Dattebayo! I WILL become Hokage before anyone knows it! Believe it!"

Minoru laughed at the young blonde's antics before placing a small snack in front of the two children.

"ANPAN!" Satsuki shouted eagerly picking up the sweet roll off her plate with both hands and taking a large bite. "MMMM!"

"Anpan?" Naruto gave a curious look to the roll sitting on his plate. "What's that?"

"It's good! Eat it!" Satsuki encouraged through her full mouth.

Naruto looked back to Minoru who was leaning back on a counter on the other side of the kitchen eating a roll himself.

"It's a sweet roll with red bean paste in it," Minoru supplied after swallowing a mouthful. "It's good, try it."

"I don't think I'll like it," Naruto poked the side of the roll with his finger before sticking his nose up in the air.

"Well, that's alright you don't have to like it." Minoru answered, putting his hands on his hips. "But if you don't eat it, then we don't train." A small smirk appeared on the older silver-haired man's face as a horrified look graced Naruto's features.

"YOU WOULDN'T DARE!"

"Ma, Naruto. Do you not know me at all?" Minoru walked up to the counter and put his hands down in front of Naruto. "I'm hurt, really. After all this time, you think I would back down on a promise?"

"Hehehe," Naruto nervously scratched at his cheek "No, but-"

"Eat. Like I said, you'll like it." Minoru pushed himself back from the counter and turned away from the two eating.

Naruto sat on the chair, his head leaning on one of his hands as he continued to poke at the golden-brown roll sitting on his plate.

After a few minutes of pushing the roll across the plate he pulled a small pinch of bread from the roll and brought it up to his eyes to inspect it. After it passed his visual inspection, he brought it to his nose taking a big whiff of the small piece of roll. The piece passing both of his tests, he stuck his tongue out and slowly brought the bread towards his mouth-

"Oomph!" A hand came out of nowhere and smacked itself against Naruto's stomach.

"HEY!" Naruto shouted, looking in the direction the hand came from looking straight at Satsuki. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

"Just eat it!" an exasperated tone worked its way into Satsuki's voice as she dramatically draped herself over the side of her chair. "I'm going to die before you eat it at this rate!"

"Hmph!" Naruto crossed his arms and looked moodily at the piece of bread in front of him.

"You've got thirty seconds before I force feed it to you."

Naruto turned to glare at Satsuki before speaking up again, "Ughhhhh, Minoru-san!"

"What can I say? She gets it from her mother." Minoru shrugged his shoulders as he laughed at the scene playing out in front of him. "I would eat it though."

"Fine." Naruto slouched down in his chair and picked the roll up and brought it to his mouth taking a large sniff of the bread before taking a small bite out of the pastry. He frowned as he rolled the piece around in his mouth taking in the whole taste of the sweet roll before swallowing the bite, the frown melting away in to a large grin. "Hey! This is really good!" he shouted before devouring the rest of the snack.

"I told you so." Satsuki mumbled sticking her tongue out at Naruto as she jumped out of her seat. "Now come-on!" she shouted as she raced towards the door to put her shoes on.

"I'm coming!" Naruto said through his full mouth, he too jumping off the bar stool and running towards the sliding door that led outside as he finished his last bite of bread. "Minoru-san, come-on!" He shouted as he jammed his feet into his sandals. "How are we going to learn anything if you don't teach us?"

"I'm coming, don't worry," Minoru chuckled as he grabbed a large wooden box from the closet, and headed towards the door. "Come-on, Daisuke, this will be fun to watch today."

The Great Dane slowly stood up, stretching his long legs out as he followed the older silver haired man out the door, letting out a small snort. "It always is with your lessons."

Minoru ignored the comment, and slid the door open and stepped out into the large backyard noticing the two children were already staring at him with eager eyes for their lesson.

"What are you going to teach us today Minoru-san?" Naruto bounced up and down with excitement. "Are you going to teach us cool jutsu?" Naruto's grin got wider and wider as he imagined all the jutsus that he could be taught.

"Now, Naruto, you forget that I am but a simple civilian with a few extraordinary talents." Minoru set the box down in front of him as a sly grin slid across his face. "So, all the more I can help you with is-"

"Conditioning, yeah, I know," Naruto said as he rubbed the back of his head. "You never know."

Satsuki sent a weary glance at the wooden box that her father set down on the ground, before looking at Naruto.

"Dodging practice?" Satsuki raised an eyebrow as she turned to look back at her father, leaning backwards just in time to dodge two kunai knives.

"You got it!" Minoru's tone held an excitement to it that made the children worry. "And today, Daisuke is even going to help me out!"

Daisuke barked an almost evil looking grin gracing his features as he wacked a soccer ball with his tail, with enough force behind it causing the ball to fly through the air straight towards Naruto.

Dodging, Naruto and Satsuki groaned, remembering the last time they had dodging practice-they couldn't stand straight for a week they were so sore.

For the next hour Naruto and Satsuki dodged the knives and balls that would fly through the air at them with no distinguishable pattern and with no end in sight.

"Naruto!" Satsuki shouted, as she tried to suck in large quantities of air to fill her screaming lungs. "What did we do to deserve this?"

"No idea," Naruto puffed in response, his back right up against hers as they tried to come up with a plan as the projectiles had seemingly stopped for the moment.

Satsuki scoffed as she dropped down to the ground and picked up a kunai from the ground, an evil glint apparent in her eyes. "Let's make him participate too!" she said launching the knife back at her father.

"Maa, Satsuki, you need way better aim than that if you want to try to hit me!" Her father half scolded in response as the knife missed him.

"Satsuki-" Naruto hissed, "What are you doing, you could hurt him!"

"He never lets us do anything that he himself couldn't do." She picked up another knife and threw it with as much force as she could muster.

Naruto's eyes widen, as the glint of mischief appeared in his eyes as well, and he too picked up a knife and tossed it at their teacher.

Minoru laughed as the two kunais completely missed their mark, and the one-way volley turned into a full out exchange, the two younger shinobi-in-trainings against the civilian and his dog.

Naruto and Satsuki dodged, running back and forth across the field as they returned the knives back to Minoru with as much force as he was using to throw them in the first place. All parties involved threw their projectiles two at a time and the children darted across the field trying to pick up knives off the ground before they could get hit until the two best friends were down to two knives on their side, and there was a stockpile lying in the middle of the yard.

"Cover me!" Satsuki shouted as she pushed the two knives into Naruto's hands and ran out from their cover behind a large tree.

"Satsuki!" Naruto hissed sticking his head around the tree only to yank it back behind the cover as a knife whizzed by the spot his head had just previously been.

"Just trust me!" She hollered back as she closed in on the stockpile at the middle of their battle.

Satsuki worked as quick as she could, filling her arms with the metal tools dodging as her father continued to toss the knives at her. As quickly as she had gotten there, she was off running back towards the tree that was offering her friend cover.

Her right ear twitched as she dodged to the left, a knife narrowly missing her ear.

"Satsuki, duck!"

She heard the command given by Naruto and complied and this time felt the air around her shift as a ball went soaring over her head.

'Almost back to the tree!' Satsuki internally sighed in relief with the knowledge that she was almost safe.

Satsuki looked up from her running for a moment, and glanced back at her father and Daisuke to see two kunai knives and two soccer balls headed straight towards her flying in such a way that it gave her no way to dodge with out getting hit by at least one projectile. She looked back to Naruto and saw the determination gleaming in his eyes as he recognized the same thing as her. She took another step forward her foot catching on the root of the large tree that could have offered her protection from the oncoming volley

Time seemed to slow down as the instant decrease in speed from being caught by the tree root caused her to fly head over foot straight towards the two kunai knives that Naruto had thrown to stop the two incoming knives from her father.

'Well, this is going to hurt' Satsuki thought her resolve as she closed her eyes tightly waiting for the impact from the un-dodge-able knives and the impending crash with the ground the was somewhere below her.

The three boys watched in horror as the girl tumbled through the air with no way of being spared from the knives when suddenly, she erupted into thousands of silver and red flowers. Leaving no trace of the silver haired child anywhere.

"What the-" Minoru mumbled the panic well hidden in his voice.

The three stood up from their spots and walked over to were the flowers were slowly falling to the ground.

"Minoru-san, what was that?" Naruto asked, the worry evident in his voice. "Where did she go?"

Minoru crouched down in front of the pile of flowers and picked up one of the red tipped silver petals. He twisted it around in his fingers as if hoping it would give him any clues to answer Naruto's question. He slowly brought the petal up to his face but stopped, his hand going limp and falling back to his side.

"Daske," Minoru's voice came out slurred and Naruto looked at him panic spreading across his eyes as his father figure fell down on to his knees. "Fi er. Ow."

Naruto looked on in worry as Minoru fell face first on the ground, and the large Great Dane took off running to find the missing child, leaving Naruto in the field by himself with an unconscious Minoru.

"Heh, guess she was too scared and left the ring. Guess that means I win!" Kiba laughed haughtily as he started towards the edge of the circle, only to be blocked by Iruka.

"What. Were. You. Thinking." Iruka spoke in a ton of voice few had heard before, one that caused the whispers to cease amongst the students, and every eye focused on the scene going on in front of them.

Kiba looked up at his teacher with defiance in his eyes. "I was thinking that I wanted to win. And I did! She left the ring."

"Let's see what your mother thinks about that when she comes to pick you up today." Iruka's tone was cold, almost deadly, reminding all the students that while he was their teacher, he was also a shinobi.

"I'm sure she's fine." Kiba scoffed turning around and walking away from the upset teacher. "Kumo. You can come out now. Tell everyone that you're fine." Kiba said in a non-caring manner as he reached the center of the ring.

"Kiba, this is serious!" Iruka said storming up to the feral looking boy.

"It looked like a shunshin. A pretty stupid, flashy one at that." The Inuzuka crouched down next to a small pile of the flowers that were accumulating and reached to pick one up.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Kiba stopped and looked up in the direction of the voice.

"Yeah, well, it's a good thing that I'm not you, Naruto." Kiba snarked turning his attention back to the petals on the ground.

"Fine, don't listen to my advice." Naruto stood up and crossed his arms as he walked closer to the dog boy and his teacher. "I hope you enjoy the hospital."

"What did you just say, whiskers?" Kiba snarled at Naruto, his interest in the flower dropped.

"Those petals are poisonous." Naruto ignored the sharp intake of breath and the scurrying noise as the students tried to get away from the flowers on the ground.

"Naruto-" Iruka tried to question but was cut off.

"Those petals knocked her father unconscious for three hours just by touching the stem of it. I wonder what would happen if you touched the full petal?" Naruto looked pointedly at Kiba as if daring him to touch the flower.

"Naruto, if you've seen this before, where is she?" The question was direct, not giving him an option of answer or not.

"No idea," Naruto shrugged his shoulder walking away, making sure to step around the few petals still on the ground. "Last time she used it, Daisuke, their dog tracked her down and brought her back home. She could be anywhere."

Iruka let out an annoyed sigh and dragged his hand across his face. He knew that today wasn't going to end well.

"Class is over for the day. Everyone can go home." Ecstatic cheers erupted through the classroom as everyone scrambled to leave as quick as they could. "Except you, Kiba." Iruka reached out and caught Kiba by the collar of his jacket before he had a chance to leave. "You are going to wait till your mother can come pick you up and you are going to explain this whole mess to her."

"This is so stupid," Kiba huffed out and crossed his arms his shoulders slouching in defeat.

"Mizuki, can you please go alert the Hokage as to what happened, and see if he has the ability to assist in locating Kumo-chan?"

"You got it, Iruka," Mizuki nodded and disappeared in a small swirl of leaves. Leaving Iruka alone with Naruto and Kiba.

"Naruto," Iruka sighed, "Get out of here. You know her better than anyone. See if you can find her."

Naruto nodded and gave Iruka a mock salute before running from the field to go look for his friend.

"Kiba, you're going to be the death of me."

Kumo slowly walked back into town following the green jump-suited shinobi, and listening to his stories of the times he served during the Third Great Shinobi World War. He talked often of the great skills of youth and how the will of fire burned bright then and will forever.

She could almost see the similarities between him and Chikaramochi-san from her book. They both shared the same sense of humour, were quirky beyond belief, and it seemed that the two of them were stronger than any normal human should be, ninja skills or not.

The two of them had just reached the edge of the clearing that separated the training ground that Gai's team had been using and the town when Kumo felt the faintest presence brush up against the edge of her senses causing her to come to a sudden stop.

"Kumo-chan, is there a reason that you have stopped?" The older ninja's voice boomed echoing across the open area.

Kumo looked to her left and to her right trying to pinpoint the presence. It was spread thin. The chakra was barely there. Almost as if they were suppressing their chakra. Almost as if they weren't supposed to be found.

"There's someone watching us," she whispered as she focused back on the presence. She took a deep breath calming her senses, her ears finally twitching as she picked up the sound of a leaf rustling in the distance. "There." She pointed slightly behind her and to the right, towards the trunk of a tree that they had passed only moments earlier.

"You don't say," Suspicion creeped itself in to Gai's voice as he reached a hand into one of his pouches.

Quicker than she could blink a kunai appeared racing through the air towards the spot that she had pointed out, imbedding itself deep inside the tree. Just underneath the knife, an outline appeared revealing someone in a long black cloak and a white mask.

Kumo blinked as the man disappeared as quickly as he appeared, leaving no trace that someone was there to begin with.

"Was that-?"

"Yes. The ANBU Black Ops." Gai responded as he continued down the path in to town. "You have some talent as a tracker ninja if you are able to pinpoint their location."

Kumo pulled her mask up further across her face, and tugged the hood a little further down in response to Gai.

"You must have an amazing teacher! Is that what the academy is focusing on now?" Gai continued his questioning.

"No, sir." Kumo said slowly, trying to decide how best to choose her answer. "My father taught me."

"Oh?" The intrigue was clearly heard in Gai's voice though he did not turn towards her, Kumo could even envision an eyebrow being raised. "And who is your father?"

"A good man, sir." Kumo answered kicking a small rock out of her way.

"Is that so, hmm?" As Kumo listened she could hear the different tones that her father had taught her as a child. Tones that were meant to use to encourage one to keep talking about things that they shouldn't.

"Yessir. The best." Kumo said nothing further as she felt the same presence from earlier, the Black Ops agent, appear again just inside her sensory range. She glared back in its direction briefly before focusing back on the path in front of her, noticing that they had almost arrived back to the academy

The two walked in a some-what comfortable silence the rest of the way up to the academy.

"Thank you for escorting me back to the academy Gai-san, I can walk the rest of the way from here."

"Nonsense!" Gai loudly laughed pushing open the large wooden doors to the academy and motioning her to follow him. "My self-imposed mission was to take you back to the academy and your teacher so they know that your flames of youth still burn brightly!"

"But I-"

"KUMO-CHAN!" Kumo stopped mid-sentence and turned around coming face to face with yellow ball of worry. "WHERE DID YOU GO?! WE WERE SO WORRIED!" Naruto inhaled a large gulp of air before continuing again, "ARE YOU OKAY?! ARE YOU HURT?! I THOUGHT IRUKA WAS GOING TO FLIP A GASKET!" He paused again and narrowed his eyes as he finally saw Gai-sensei standing to her left, he put his hand up to hide his mouth and whispered "Who's this?"

Kumo laughed at her friend's antics and ran through the list of questions he had asked. "I'm fine. I'll explain it all later. What are you doing out of class?"

"Iruka-sensei cut class short because of what had happened, he was really worried about you." Naruto laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head, a small blush appearing across his face.

"Then we should make sure he knows that you are safe, Kumo-chan. Naruto-kun, you may join as well!" The green man led the way through the academy some-how knowing which classroom was theirs.

After a few minutes of being led through the hallways they came to a stop in front of their classroom. Gai gave a curt knock on the door, and waited for the rather hurried reply of 'Come-in' before opening the door.

Kumo stayed behind the green giant as he walked in to the classroom.

"I'm sorry, but I'm busy at the moment can you-Might Gai!" Kumo heard the surprised voice of Iruka from the other side of Gai. "I'm in the middle of a parent meeting, is there something I can help you with?"

"I just wanted to deliver a pupil of yours. Appeared in a rather large explosion in the middle of a training spar between my students!" A hand came out of nowhere and clamped itself onto Kumo's shoulder, dragging her into the classroom. "She did extremely well for a student that has yet to graduate! Her flames of youth are definitely burning bright, you should be extremely proud of her!"

A slight blush crossed Iruka's face as he registered Gai's compliment. "I didn't do much, it was all her," He said absentmindedly, scratching the back of his head. "Kumo-" he was instantly back on track and looked straight down at her. "Are you okay?"

"Ye-" Kumo was cut off before she could finish her response.

"I smell blood, are you hurt?"

Kumo looked around Iruka and saw a feral looking woman walking towards her. It took her a few seconds before remembering the woman from her first day at the academy: Inuzuka-sama.

"I asked you a question, pup." The woman stated, reaching out and grabbing Kumo's hands that were covered in now dried blood.

At hearing the woman call her 'pup' Kumo instantly snatched her hands back and narrowed her eyes. "I'm fine, ma'am." She answered curtly rubbing her hands against the soft fabric of her trench coat, the blood flaking of in small flecks.

Iruka had disappeared at some point during the exchange with the Inuzuka woman, and had reappeared back in front of Kumo with a wet washcloth. Grabbing ahold of her hands he gently washed the rest of the blood off, trying to get a look at her injured hand.

"See?" she held her hands out for everyone in the room to look at. "I'm not injured." The palms of her hands were free of injuries, the skin flawless and smooth.

"Then who's blood was it, pup?"

"Don't call me pup." Was Kumo's only response as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"It was hers." Naruto spoke up from behind her, ignoring the sharp glare that he received from Kumo. "What? It's true!" He hissed "She ripped her hands open when sparring with Kiba."

A suspicious look crossed Iruka's face before he asked a further question. "Is that true?

Kumo lifted an eyebrow in an annoyed fashion and huffed. "So, what if it is? The fact of the matter is that I'm alive. Can I go now?" What started out as a very annoyed almost hostile tone, ended in a low whine, as Kumo slumped her shoulders and dramatically hung her head towards the ground.

Iruka looked at Kumo, hiding a chuckle at the odd angles the girl had hung her body at to prove her point of wanting to leave.

"Get out of here." Iruka sighed turning away from Kumo, "You included, Naruto. I'll see you both in class first thing tomorrow morning. Gai-san, can you please stay behind for a few minutes?"

Kumo and Naruto took off running towards the exit, the only exchange between the two was the red head looking over her shoulder at her friend and saying "Boy, do I have stuff to tell you!"

"Hiruzen, this is unacceptable!" The Hokage looked up from his paperwork as the door to his office seemingly burst open by itself, allowing entrance to his two old teammates and current advisors: Mitokado, Homura and Utatane, Koharu.

"And to what do I owe such a pleasant visit?" Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed as the two advisors marched their way right up to his desk.

"Who is this Hayashi, Sakumo?" Koharu spoke up, a permanent unapproving frown adorning her face.

"And why is today the first that we are hearing of her?" Homura supplied, finishing the rest of his former teammate's question.

The Hokage sighed thinking back on the events that happened at the Academy that he witnessed through his crystal ball. He had truly hoped that they wouldn't hear of her until after her graduation next week.

"Hayashi, Kumo is a student that joined the academy late after undergoing private studies, and she is doing an excellent job in her shinobi preparations."

"That is not what we're talking about, Hiruzen." Homura spoke up again, pushing his glasses closer to his eyes. "She is merely a child. Only eight years old, yet she is in with the graduating class."

"The graduation age was pushed back for a reason. She should be in a class with others her own age." Koharu added as she and Homura sat down in the chairs positioned in front of the Hokage's desk.

"Kumo is an exception to the rules. She had already mastered most of what we taught in the earlier classes. If I had let her in a class of her own age group, she would have grown bored, and potentially lost interest. Which would cause us to lose a valuable asset to our village." Hiruzen answered as he went back to filling out his paperwork.

"Who trained her? The clans here in Konoha would never have pushed their children so much, not after the Uchiha incident." The disdain in Koharu's voice was apparent.

"It was her father."

"Yes, but who is her father. We all know there is only one person to have ever stepped in this village with hair the same colour as hers, but she left this world long before the child's birth." Koharu pshed further looking for the answers to the questions she knew both her and Homura.

"The identity of her father is an S-class secret." Sarutobi's answer was short, not giving room for questioning, or at least, he believed it as such.

"You can not do such a thing Sarutobi. For the good of the village, you must tell us of her parentage." Homura calmly stated as he pursed his lips together into a tight line.

"For the safety of her, her father, AND the village, his identity will remain a secret until I so decide to reveal it." Hiruzen looked up from his paperwork, his voice even with an edge of steel to it. "That is all there is to it."

"For now, Hiruzen," The two advisors looked at each other, and then back at the Hokage. "We will find the answers we want. But for now, the decision is final. The girl will not graduate next week. She will stay until she is of graduation age."

"You can not do that," The Hokage ground out, his hand curling up into a fist.

"Oh, but we can," Koharu laid a manila folder on the top of the desk. "The Daimyo was eager to sign a form denying early graduation when we found that you were trying to have an eight-year-old graduate from the academy this year."

"This is a poor decision that you have both made," he glared at the two smugly smiling advisors. "This will stunt her growth as a shinobi, and we will lose a valuable asset."

"Or, you can entrust her to me," Sarutobi looked away from the two grinning advisors to the new arrival.

"Danzo," annoyance oozed from the Hokage's voice as he spoke "And why have you decided to grace us with your presence today?"

"The girl can not graduate for another three years," Something sparkled in Danzo's eyes that the Hokage couldn't quite place. "If there is nothing more from the Academy that she can learn, place her in my care. I will turn her in to the asset that Konoha truly needs."

The Hokage stayed silent for a moment as he glanced over the new arrival in the room. He was heavily bandaged, and leaned on his cane, giving off the appearance of an elderly and weak old man, something that Hiruzen knew for a fact that Danzo was not.

"Over my dead body, Danzo."

"Still something that I could make happen, I suppose," Danzo chuckled and turned back towards the door as he made his motion to leave. "Just an option is all, no need to be so opposed to it, I really could make her great."

Homura and Koharu took this as their turn to leave as well, and stood up from their chairs.

"You really should have told us of the girl ahead of time. Especially after all the trouble she caused at the Academy today." Koharu turned away from her teammate and headed towards the door.

"Maybe you should take Danzo up on his offer, and let him train the girl. What harm could it do?" Homura too turned and walked towards the door. "She does have three years till she can graduate after all."

Hiruzen Sarutobi clenched both of his hands into tight fists and brought them down heavily on the desk in front of him, causing a crack to worm its way down the center.

"Hokage-sama."

"What." Sarutobi looked up his voice dripping with frustration as he looked up from his desk and saw an ANBU Black Ops member kneeling in front of him.

"The girl was located. She was being escorted back in to town by Might Gai before she located my position. She seemed to be unharmed." The Bear masked operative responded in a monotone voice, his head turned towards the floor.

"Thank you Bear. That is all."

The Hokage sighed as Bear disappeared leaving him alone in his office. That was the fourth time that she had located an ANBU member, and that was just that he was aware of. That alone would have given Danzo enough reason to take interest in the girl.

"I promise you, Minoru. That man, will not get his hands on your daughter."

"You're joking!" Naruto exclaimed, almost dropping the pan he was holding on the floor. "You went up against a Hyuuga and lived?!"

"Yeah! Though, I don't want to repeat that experience anytime soon." Kumo said as she hung upside down off the couch. "My arm still smarts from the whole experience."

"Well that's what you get for shocking your arm in to working. Didn't your dad say-"

"Yeah, emergencies only." Kumo glared at the backside of her friend as he finished cooking their dinner: Miso soup and eggplant. "But I thought I was going to be killed by enemies, not leaf ninjas."

Kumo flipped herself off of the couch and walked over to the small kitchen table in Naruto's dinning room and started clearing the many sheets of paper off the top.

"But that's who the guy was who escorted me back to the academy: Might Gai, the Hyuuga's sensei. He kept saying something about the 'will of fire' and the 'power of youth' or some mumbo jumbo like that." Kumo sat down on a wobbly chair with a loud huff and propped her chin up on her hand. "And then his weird little doppelganger declared that I would be his rival once I graduated. He was so weird!" Kumo shuddered trying to erase the image of the two ninjas wearing jumpsuits from her mind.

"Good thing we only have a week left till that happens!" Naruto laughed in response as he dished up their dinner into bowls, "Either way, you should have seen Iruka-sensei's face when he was yelling at Kiba. Everyone thought he was going to explode!"

Kumo groaned dramatically as she picked up her set of chopsticks. "Yeah, just a week." She mumbled not being able to shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. There was a small pause as she digested the rest of the information that Naruto had provided. "Wait, just Kiba? Not Shikamaru as well?"

"Shikamaru? That slacker?" Naruto's face scrunched up as if he had smelled bad fish. "What does he have to do with what happened?"

Kumo was silent and didn't answer his question. Iruka hadn't caught Shikamaru. And Naruto was right, he was a slacker at the best of times, so what had prompted him to paralyze her during the fight. What did he have to gain from it? The whole situation was giving her a funny feeling, and she didn't like it. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

The duo silently broke apart their chopsticks, said a small 'Itadakimasu' and started to dig in to their meals.

There we are, the longest chapter to date. I hope y'all enjoyed it.

What do we think will happen next?

Ja ne! :D


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 1 has been revised a bit, so check that, and as always I do not own Naruto : )

It had been DAYS since the incident at the academy with Kiba and Shikamaru, and Kumo was no closer to getting her answer than she was the day that it had happened. She had tried to talk with Iruka-sensei, but he was always too busy to talk with her about the incident, and when she tried to discuss it with Mizuki-sensei, he stated that no-one saw Shikamaru do anything, so they couldn't do anything without hard proof since in his words "Who would believe you?".

After that it was her every intention to question Shikamaru the moment she saw him the next day, but at every opportunity Mizuki-sensei either interrupted her or Shikamaru almost literally disappeared with no trace of being found. It was clear at this point though that he was avoiding her, and she didn't like it, that's why she was taking things into her own hands.

It was currently early morning and the sun had just started to rise over the horizon. The perfect time where a seasoned shinobi would just be getting ready to start their day, and one extremely lazy academy student would still be avoiding getting out of bed, and that's how Kumo found herself leisurely strolling through the streets towards the outer edge of the village her hands stuffed in her pockets as she got closer and closer to her destination.

"Hey!" Kumo stopped in her tracks and looked over he shoulder back at a blonde bubble of joy that was running straight at her. When he finally caught up with her, he crossed his arms and asked "What are you doing up so early?"

Kumo bent over and picked up a stick of wood off the ground and nonchalantly answered "Going to get some answers." She shrugged her shoulders and continued on her path.

"What do you mean?" Confusion laced the blonde's voice as he followed his best friend farther and farther away from the center of the town.

Kumo just shrugged her should and offered an off-hand comment, "You're smart you can figure it out."

The two continued walking in silence until the came to the front of a clan compound, the Nara compound to be exact.

"You're not doing what I think you're doing, are you?"

"Maybe, can you play along?" A mischievous tone danced in her question as she walked to the largest house and boldly rose up her hand and knocked three times.

The duo waited patiently, or anxiously in Naruto's case as he continuously bounced from foot to foot, and after a few minutes the door finally opened up to reveal a rather disgruntled looking man with scars across his face.

"Do you realize what time it is?" The man drawled leaning on the door frame, looking down at the red head and the blonde who were grinning sheepishly back at him.

"Well yeah," Kumo rolled her eyes as if it was the silliest question she could have been asked.

"Do you realize who that is?" Naruto's voice whispered in her ear.

Kumo cocked her head to the side for the moment as she sized up the man in front of her. He had two scars across his face one running up the side of his forehead and the other from the back corner of his jaw up across his cheek. He had black hair that was pulled back in to a pony tail and a short goatee. He was wearing what appeared to be a fishnet shirt, and standard issue shinobi pants. Kumo was certain that if it wasn't so early in the morning, he would have a chunin vest on as well as a hitai-ate on as well.

"Well of course I do!" she giggled slightly as she looked back at Naruto, her eyes crinkling upwards showing the smile that was surely hidden beneath her mask. "This is Shikaku-Inei-sama. He's Shikamaru's father. He's also the Jounin Commander." Kumo's eyebrow raised slightly as if challenging that knowledge with man himself.

"You going to answer why you're at my door this early?"

"Well that's easy sir, with Shikamaru being soooo lazy, we were afraid that he was going to oversleep for the genin exam this morning, so Naruto and I brought it upon ourselves to escort him to the academy this morning so he would be on time!" Kumo held her hands behind her back, the stick that she had picked up earlier on her walk safely tucked up her sleeve, as she portrayed the face of innocence through what little could be seen of her facial expressions.

"I appreciate you being worried about my son, but he's up already. He's feeding the deer as a part of his chores. He'll be along to the academy shortly. Now if you don't mind…." Shikaku trailed off leaving the unanswered request of 'please go on your way' hanging on the air.

Kumo stood in front of the elder Nara for a moment just smiling as she listened to her surroundings before she finally answered with a very lively "Of course! Thanks, Inei-sama!" as she turned on her heel towards the entrance of the compound.

The duo was just about to reach the main entrance of the compound when Kumo suddenly turned and took off running towards the forest that was immediately to her left.

"I knew you wouldn't just let it rest at that." Naruto muttered from behind her as he too started to run to catch back up with her. "Is this about what happened last week?"

"Yes. I got to know why he did what he did!" Kumo's tone was frustrated portraying her true emotions for once, quickly attracting the attention of her orange clad friend.

"Kumo-" he paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, "If you know what you're doing, then I will trust you and follow your plan."

"Perfect."

A few minutes later found Kumo hiding high up in a tree, and Naruto walking nonchalantly through the forest with his hands held behind his head. He was doing the opposite of what he was taught by Minoru-san and was being rather loud as he tracked through the woods as he headed in the direction that Kumo told him that their target was currently at, assumingly feeding the deer. As he got closer, he made sure to be extra clumsy, before finally and triumphantly entering the clearing that Shikamaru was in by tripping across a root that was barely sticking out of the ground, causing him to go flying in to the clearing and landing at the young shadow user's feet.

There was a moment of silence as Shikamaru looked down at where Naruto had landed at his feet and he rose his eyebrow before muttering "Troublesome."

"Hehe," Naruto laughed sheepishly scratching the back of his head in mock embarrassment, as he slowly picked himself up off the ground. "Hey Shikamaru, what are you doing here?"

"I should be the one asking you that, you are on my property after all."

"Well how was I supposed to know that this was your property? It's not like you have a sign up or anything." Naruto crossed his arms and stuck his nose up in the air.

"Well the fact that you would have had to enter through the front of the compound should have given you a pretty good answer, loser."

"Oh." Naruto looked shocked at the answer and then touched his fingers to his chin looking like he was processing the information. "So that's what we passed through."

"What do you mean, we?" Shikamaru asked dangerously, his eyes narrowing as he took a step back with each step forward that Naruto took.

"He meant me."

Shikamaru had no time to react as a red-head dropped out of the tree just behind him and forced him to the ground, smashing his face in to the dirt, as she sat on his back placing her legs on either side of his body.

She couldn't hear what came out of his mouth but knew he was trying to say something through the dirt caked into his mouth, so she grabbed his ponytail, and held a kunai to his neck as she picked his face up off the ground.

"Care to say that again?" malice dripped from Kumo's voice as she whispered into Shikamaru's ear.

"You're such a troublesome woman," Shikamaru mumbled spitting the dirt out of his mouth.

"And I'm going to keep being troublesome until you tell me what happened last week."

"I don't know what you're talking ab-" before Shikamaru could finish Kumo had stuck his head back in the dirt.

"Try that again. I know you're lying."

"This is such a dr-" again his face went back in the dirt.

"I just want an answer as to what happened Shika-kun," an innocence laced her voice this time, and it reminded Shikamaru of the time that the lady from T&I stopped by. What was her name again?

This time he made no motion to move and instead decided to glare at Naruto from the corner of his eye. He kept his eyes trained on Naruto as his brain tried to go through all the ways to get out of this mess. His hands were incapacitated so he couldn't attempt his shadow possession jutsu to get her off of him, and even if he did, he was sure Naruto would just back his friend up. The two of them were nearly inseparable after all. How could he have been so stupid? He should have realized that the troublesome red-head would have been somewhere close by. He should have-

"One last chance, Shika-kun," he felt Kumo press the knife a little closer to his neck as she picked his face up out of the ground. "Dear-old daddy is going to be here any minute. Do you want him to hear what you did, or would you rather just keep it between the three of us?" Her voice took on a pouty tone, and it was grating on his nerves.

"Fine!" He mumbled through clenched teeth. He took as deep of a breath as he could with the girl sitting on his back before he continued speaking. "It was some sort of Genjutsu."

"You're smarter than that. Try again." Kumo growled pushing the knife even closer to his neck.

"I'm being serious." The raven-haired boy gritted back. "It was so subtle that I had no idea what was even happening until it was over." He paused and glared as he heard Naruto scoff next to him. "I thought I was restraining Kiba. Whoever placed the Genjutsu had me seeing you as Kiba and vice-versa. I didn't even realize what had happened until there were flowers blowing across the field and Iruka was barking at Kiba. I got out of there as quick as I could when I realized that Iruka didn't see what I had done."

"And how is that possible, that a seasoned shinobi missed you preforming the shadow possession jutsu?"

"Beats me. That's what I've been trying to figure out all week."

If Kumo wasn't paying attention she would have missed the resentment that was barely hidden in his voice.

"You should have told me earlier." Kumo said as she got up off of Shikamaru's back.

"I tried. Mizuki-sensei kept telling me not to bother you because of the supposed 'trauma' the incident put you through, and it was too troublesome to argue with him." Shikamaru stood up and brushed the dirt off the front of his clothes before shoving his hands into his pockets. "Do you mind not threatening my life next time?"

Kumo tilted her head slightly to the right in mock confusion before exclaiming "Oh! You mean this?" she held up the kunai to the raven's face. "It's not dangerous, it's just a stick." She shrugged her shoulders as the metallic colour drained from the knife and it took shape of the stick that she had picked up off the ground prior to getting to the compound.

"What a drag," Shikamaru sighed, and if it was even possible slouched further.

"You could say that again." Shikamaru looked to the side of the clearing to see his father waltzing in to the clearance. "Your mother is going to kill me when she sees the state of your clothes. And you two, I thought I told you we would take care of getting Shikamaru here to school." It wasn't a question, and it made a shiver run through Kumo's spine.

"Well-" Kumo started but was cut off by her fellow blonde trouble maker.

"We had every intention of leaving, but then we ran into a black cat." Naruto explained as if it was the most common thing in the world. "And they're bad luck you know. So, we obviously had to take the long way. We just didn't realize that the long way would bring us here."

Shikaku stopped for a moment, and it seemed as if his left eyebrow was going to meet his hairline as it kept raising higher and higher, before he audibly groaned and turned back towards the way he came. "Well come on. It's breakfast time."

Kumo and Naruto hung back for a moment as Shikamaru trudged after his father, before the two friends turned to leave the way they came.

"I said, it's breakfast time." The duo stopped cold as the tone in Shikaku's voice turned icy and they turned back to the elder shinobi. "And if someone has to take the fall for Shikamaru's clothes, it's not going to be me."

Kumo and Naruto exchanged a look before the two shrugged their shoulders and ran after the Nara duo.

Shikaku glanced out of the corner of his eye at the red head that had decided to link arms with him. "Hayashi, you're going to be the death of me."

Shikamaru couldn't believe that Kumo had gotten him out of getting into trouble with his mother when she saw his dirt covered clothes, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he left it go and was now currently trudging along the path to go to school for the genin exam as Kumo and Naruto babbled next to him.

Kumo was an unknown variable in his life. Naruto had become one as well. Naruto, he had originally written off as a prankster, a troublemaker, someone who despite his resolve to become Hokage one day, he had doubted that would happen. But he had seen over the year and a half or so how much better he was becoming at the shinobi arts. He knew that most of his teachers hadn't noticed and continued to criticize him, and he too, and continued to write off his improvements until the red head had appeared in his class those months ago. Naruto had seemed to know her extremely well, almost as if the two had been raised together, and after seeing her skills as a shinobi in training it was all becoming extremely clear that she had helped him with the skills that he had gained.

That opened up another troublesome door though: where had she learned her skills? He didn't know any other shinobi in the village who had the same bright red hair as her, but that didn't mean a thing. The red could have only been one of the parent's hair colour, and they could have passed away, which meant he could have been looking for just about anyone. And the last name, Hayashi, it didn't belong to the village, so she could have been a foreigner. But she was scary good at weapons, not to mention the whole flower thing, if she was deemed to be a threat by the Hokage, she wouldn't be learning to be a shinobi at the academy, she would be in jail under interrogation, so that had to mean that the Hokage trusted her. Unless he didn't know the side of her that he had just witnessed….Shikamaru shuddered at the thought and pushed it to the back of his mind. He was the Hokage, he knew everything that happened in the village so that couldn't be a possibility. He had to know.

Shikamaru paused in his thoughts as they reached the doors to the academy, only to be stopped by two shinobis in white porcelain masks who were blocking said doors.

"Uhm, excuse you, but we have to pass through." Naruto stated. "We're going to become genin today, believe it!"

"You and the Nara may pass. But the girl may not." The non-descript shinobi in an owl mask said pointing straight to Kumo.

"What are you talking about?" Kumo asked crossing her arms across her chest

"As you've been informed already, you are not allowed to take the genin exam." The owl mask spoke up again.

"Excuse me?" confusion and anger laced her voice, this time not faked.

Shikamaru stayed quiet as he mentally took note of the conversation that was being held.

"No-one has told her that, I can assure you!" Naruto butted in to the conversation. "I hav-"

"Naruto, please don't make this any harder on her than it already is." Naruto whipped his head back to look at the owner of the voice that just joined the conversation. "From my understanding, Iruka-sensei has already had this conversation with her. She should know better."

Shikamaru allowed his eyes to watch the emotions flash across her face. This time not being schooled as well as he knew that she could. He could see anger, confusion, understanding, despair, desperation flash across her eyes, before she finally answered with a small. "Fine. Whatever." It made a small part of Shikamaru's heart twinge in pain watching the girl go from the strong confident shinobi-to-be that he had just seen an hour ago, to a girl who now seemed as if she had just had her future taken from her.

"Kumo-" Naruto had started, but was cut off by his best friend.

"It's fine Naruto, it's nothing that we won't be able to solve. Now, go take that test and become a genin for the both of us, okay?" her eyes were crinkled upwards imitating a smile, but even Shikamaru could tell that it was false.

"Are you sure?" Unease was plainly visible across Naruto's face.

"Yeah." She sighed stuffing her hands in the pockets of her trench coat. "Go pass that test. Show off what dad and I taught you. I'll be waiting out here for you after the exam, okay?"

Naruto paused for the moment and nodded his head before grabbing Kumo's hand and bringing them close enough so that their shoulders were touching.

Shika had to strain his ears but he heard clearly as the two exchanged a brief dialogue.

"Surely as the eagle flies with the wind."

"Surely as the sun rises in the east," Naruto broke off the semi-hug and walked between the two ANBU shinobi. "I'll meet you here when I'm done!" He shouted over his shoulder launching a peace sign back at his best friend.

Shikamaru groaned and hung his head as he followed the blonde in to the school. Something fishy definitely was going on, and something was telling him that their blue haired teacher had his hands in part of it.

There we are! Let's see what happens next, yeah?


	10. Chapter 10

I do not own Naruto :D

Enjoy

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Kumo could do nothing but stare at the dirt underneath her feet as she rocked back and forth on the one lone swing hanging from the one lone low branch on the tree in front of the academy as she waited for Naruto to return.

It didn't make sense. Any of it. They had stated that she was already told that she was not allowed to participate in the graduation exam. But she hadn't. That obviously meant that someone was supposed to tell her. But who? And for what reason? She had been doing an amazing job in the academy, her scores surpassing almost everyone else's scores, so it obviously couldn't be for that reason. If her dad was here, he would have-.

Well what would he have done? Her knowledge of him up until the incident those months ago, had her every thought of him being as a civilian. She knew that the civilian side of him would have given her a hug, told her 'Buck up pup, it happened the way it did because it was necessary." and he would have left it at that. Him as a shinobi though, what would he have done? Would he have gone right up to the ANBU ninjas and told them to let her in? Would he have escorted her straight pass them and to the exam himself? Would he have-.

She stopped short in her thoughts and took a shaky breath. It doesn't matter what her father would have done, because he wasn't there. He was still on his 'mission' as she was to tell it to others when they asked. She missed him so much, and couldn't believe that he hadn't made it back to her yet after he had promised. If he was that good of a ninja that he had kept it a secret from her all those years, that must mean that he's at least a little good, right? So that must mean that snake man would have been no problem for him. If that's the case though, what's taking him so long to get back to her and Naru? What if-

"Kumo!" a voice called out to her causing her to jump slightly.

She regained her composer and looked up at the face that was currently looking down at her before giving a clipped response. "Yes, Mizuki-sensei?"

"I just wanted to apologize for earlier." A crestfallen look fell across his face. "I was under the impression that Iruka-sensei had already informed you. He was after all told last week that you would not be permitted to participate in the genin exams."

"Wha-" everything stopped for Kumo. Iruka knew last week? Why hadn't he told her then? "Why?"

"It's because of your age. The elders thought you were too young to participate, so they made an executive decision." Mizuki kept his eyes trained to the ground, with a small sorrowful look across his face. "But, it's because they wanted to make sure you were properly prepared for life as a shinobi with a different kind of test."

Kumo looked straight at Mizuki joy slowly starting to show itself across her previously blank eyes. "Seriously?!"

"Yes. But it is a test that you have to do by yourself to prove that you can be a shinobi. That's why we couldn't tell you in front of your friends. What do you think, do you believe yourself prepared to take the advanced test?"

She was split on her decision. Part of her said to be weary of anything that he had proposed because of everything that had happened over the last few months that he seemed to be at the center of. The other part of her mind ran rampant as the possibilities of the different situations that she could potentially encounter on this test, and how it could mean that she would be a ninja like Naruto no doubt would end up being. And of course, Naruto would be so jealous to find out that she had passed in a completely separate, if not cooler exam than he had.

"Yes!" Kumo practically shouted, already excited for this new test that she was to take. "What do I do?"

It was easy. Almost too easy for Kumo's liking. Mizuki-sensei had told her that her mission was to steal the Forbidden Scroll from the Hokage's office. The parameters were that she couldn't be caught or seen by any ninja OR civilians, and that meant specifically her friends. He said that by doing this that she would be demonstrating that she would be able to do reconnaissance missions with no difficulty. He also gave the extra-credit task of learning one technique within the scroll, stating that it would demonstrate the ability to learn new things on the move, which is a must amongst shinobi. Those were the things that she was to accomplish by midnight.

Not only was the Scroll not hidden, it was sitting in plain sight within the Hokage's office. All Kumo had to do was to wait for the Hokage to leave the office and as his ANBU would go with him, she would have a clear line to grab the scroll, and to jump out the window, and be on her way.  
She had been sitting on the windowsill outside the Hokage's office for several hours now, suppressing her chakra as much as she could as to not attract attention to herself from the occupants of the room. As she sat there, she had stretched her senses out as much as she could so that when the time came, she would know that the office was clear for her to sneak in and snatch the scroll.

While she sat on that windowsill, the Hokage had had several different visitors in his office. Most of them were ninjas bringing mission reports, she knew this because she could feel the tingle of chakra across her skin as a privacy barrier was activated, and then subsequently be deactivated precisely ten minutes later each time. She had spent over an hour in this fashion, feeling the chakra tickle her skin each time the seals were activated, when the first visitor to the Hokage entered and a barrier wasn't erected.

She had taken a deep breath and willed herself to still her breathing, and pushed a little extra chakra to her ears so that she could hear what was being said.

"Ah, Shikaku-kun, what brings you here today?" The voice of the Hokage trailed softly to her ears.

"This is a drag," there was a loud sigh, and Kumo could imagine the man sliding a hand across his face. "I overheard something troublesome this morning."

There was a long pause and Kumo was worried that she had missed a privacy barrier being erected before someone finally spoke again.

"Do go on," it was the Hokage who had spoken up.

"The Uzumaki boy, and the red head he hangs out with showed up at my house this morning." It was stated as if he was talking about the weather. "The girl said something about making sure Shikamaru showed up for his genin exam on time this morning."

"Given the reputation of the boy, that doesn't seem too, 'troublesome'." The Hokage chuckled a bit.

"That wasn't the troublesome bit. I told them that I would handle it and sent them on their way. They left, but they were too willing to let it go, so I followed them. They got to the edge of the compound and then took off running into the forest, straight to Shika's position. Almost as if they were given a map to his exact location." There was a loud audible sigh before the man continued. "The two had come up with a plan to ambush him. A rather good one, too," the last part was spoken lower than the rest. "They cornered him and started questioning him about an incident that had happened at school last week. Where the Inuzuka boy supposedly almost killed the red head because Shikamaru paralyzed her with a shadow-possession jutsu."

There was another long pause and Kumo held her breath while she waited for the next piece of dialogue to happen.

"That is different than how I had heard it happen." It was the Hokage who had spoken up. "It was reported to me by Mizuki that Kiba had decided to use ninjutsu in a taijutsu only fight and the girl became scared and froze due to shock."

"Lies!" Kumo hissed, only to have her eyes widen in shock as she clamped her hands over her mouth and held her breath, hoping that no-one had heard her.

The red-head sat with baited breath waiting for the conversation to continue before semi-relaxing again, and after what felt like an hour the conversation finally began again.

"The girl threatened him, with a branch that she had transformed to look like a knife." There was a small noise, almost as if something was being placed on a desk. "He confirmed her side of the story. Stated that someone put him under a genjutsu, and Mizuki was pretty keen on keeping him away from the girl."

"That's most interesting." There was an audible sigh heard from the older gentleman in the room. "I will have to take a look into this. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention, Shikaku."

"One last thing, Hokage-sama."

There was a small pause and Kumo could only imagine that there was a small nod of permission happening.

"The girl called me 'Shikaku-Inei-Sama'. Only one person ever called me Inei, and he's long gone to the world. Any idea where she could have picked that up from?"

"Maybe the girl heard of your clan's techniques and thought that it was a good nickname." There was a small chuckle. "You never can tell with children these days."

There was a small 'Tsk' noise made the sound of a door closing, and the office became silent again.

Interesting. Either both of her teachers had missed what Shikamaru had done, or one of the teachers was lying to the Hokage. With her information from Shikamaru, and over hearing what his father had just told the Hokage of, it would lead her to assume that it was Mizuki, but why go through all that trouble to keep her out of becoming a shinobi, and then offer her a back-up test to become a genin? In her few months of being in his classroom, she had never known Iruka to lie to her, and Mizuki always gave her a funny feeling. She also knew that if Iruka had seen Shikamaru using a jutsu to keep her stationary, that he would have called him out on it and given him some sort of a word lashing too.

But there was always the issue of the original genin test that she was supposed to be taking. Iruka had supposedly told her last week that she couldn't take it, but no-one had told her. It would make sense that it was originally Iruka who was covering everything up, well, why would he have to tell her that she couldn't take the genin test when she was too injured to take it anyways due to an in-class injury? It was kind of mind-boggling, but not in the good way if you asked her.

Looking to the horizon, she smiled as she saw the sun start to meet the horizon. Almost go time. She took a deep breath and stood up from her crouching position to hide fully in the shadow that were slowly dragging across the sides of the building and focused on dampening her chakra until it truly felt as that of a civilian child. It was only a matter of minutes now until she could put her plan in to action.

She listened intently as she heard the Hokage stand up from his chair, walk across his office, and then stop halfway as the door opened.

"Good evening, Hokage-sama."

"Ahh, Iruka, you caught me just in time. I was just about to leave."

Kumo frowned and bit back a growl as she heard her sensei's name being spoken.

"My apologies, Hokage-sama. I wanted to bring you the results of the genin exams, like you had requested."

"You're usually a little more prompt than this, my boy. What happened?"

"I was stopped by Naruto on my way out. He really does know how to talk when he's excited." There was a small chuckle, and Kumo couldn't help but smile.

"Ah, Naruto-kun. How did he do on the exams?"

"He passed, with flying colours!" Kumo left out a breath she didn't know she had been holding with that news. "Absolutely stellar results. He performed a Bunshin, Henge, and Kawarimi, as if they were second nature, bullseyes with all his shuriken and Kunai, and a near perfect score on his written exam. In fact, he missed rookie of the year by one point. If I hadn't seen his improvement over the last year or so, I would have thought he had been cheating."

"That is wonderful! You should be proud of yourself for being an amazing teacher Iruka-kun." Their voices started to travel further across the office, and Kumo could hear a door beginning to open again.

"That the thing, Lord Hokage-," the rest of Iruka's sentence was cut off as the door closed behind the two as the left the room.

Kumo stood in the shadows for a further twenty minutes, making sure that there was no-one further in the room. Making sure that there was no ANBU hanging out in the corners of the room, and making sure that the Hokage would not be returning any time soon before she started to edge the window open. Not too much, just enough to squeeze herself through the space between the sill and the bottom of the window.

She lowered herself to the floor without a sound and looked to the prize across the room: The forbidden scroll. She slowly and as quietly as possible walked across the floor until she was standing in front of it. Just observing it. It didn't seem that big and dangerous. Looked just like a scroll to her after all. But it must be important if this was given to her as her task for her exam.

But, if it was that important of a scroll, maybe it was better that it just stay in the Hokage's office, and she not move it at all. It was Mizuki after all, who had given her this task, and he always give her the willies. What to do, what to do, what to do?!

Kumo stood there in the office and took a look around the room, trying to finalize her decision, when her eyes came to rest on one small item lying on the Hokage's desk. And like a light turning on, she had come to her decision and quickly got to work.

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The sun had long set by the time Kumo made it to the meeting spot. It was a large clearing in the forest outside the village walls. The moon had since made its way high in the sky to where it was shining through the leaves and leaving small patches of light that littered the ground as the red head waited for the proctor of her exam.

It was peaceful in the clearing, to a point where it almost made her sleepy. Almost. She knew that until Mizuki came into sight that the test was still going, which meant that if anyone else wandered into the clearing that she could still fail the exam. So, with the scroll tied across her back she left her senses open, searching for Mizuki, and the end of the exam.

Only a few minutes late she could sense the reprieve coming, with Mizuki coming towards her with hurried steps.

"Ah, Kumo! There you are!" There was a false sense of cheeriness in his voice that made her blood run cold as she watched her pale blue haired teacher continue to walk through the clearing "We have to hurry. Come now."

"So, do I pass?" Kumo allowed a confused tone to pass through her voice as she masked her worry.

"Of course. Of course. Now hurry up." The response was hurried, as if the question wasn't listened to in the first place.

"But you haven't seen my extra credit yet!" Kumo could sense that something was wrong, but she couldn't quite place it.

"What do you me-" He turned back to face her, a plainly fake smile still warped across his face. "Oh. The extra credit? I wouldn't worry about that anymore." Mizuki took several steps back towards Kumo, and reached his hands out to her. "You're going to be part of something better now. How about it? Hand over the scroll to me, and we can be on our way."

"What do you mean, Mizuki-sensei? What's going on?" Kumo wrapped her hands tightly around the strap keeping the scroll tied to her back.

"KUMO!" A familiar voice shouted from the opposite side of the clearing as Mizuki and Kumo turned to see Iruka jumping down from the tree line, with his hand on his kunai pouch. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Iruka-sensei, it's part of my exam." Kumo bit back, as she started to pull the strap from around her shoulders. "You were the one who didn't tell me that I wasn't allowed to take the normal exam. Mizuki-Sensei is only trying to help me become a genin."

"What do you mean? Mizuki was the one who was supposed to tell you. He said he told you a week ago." Confusion dripped from his words, and Kumo could only crinkle her eyebrows as she tried to decipher what was going on.

"Kumo, Iruka was to tell you, and he clearly didn't. He's now just trying to put the blame on me because he doesn't want you to be able to complete the exam. He doesn't want you to become a shinobi. He doesn't want you to have access to power beyond belief."

"Kumo, I don't know what he told you, but there is NO make-up test. There is no special exam. The elders said no, and that's who we have to listen to. We can't go around them."

The girl gripped the strap holding the scroll to her back as tightly as she could as she tried to quickly come to a conclusion of what to do. The older ninjas were coming closer on either side, both of them wanting the scroll, both of them saying the other was lying about who was lying. She couldn't discern who was actually telling the truth, but she could decide that in this state, no-one would get the prize held across her back. Taking in her surroundings she did the only thing she could come up with to get her out of the grasp of the two men: jump.

She jumped as high as she could, her hands barely grabbing the bottom most branch on the tree above her, swung herself on top of it, and started running through the canopies. It was the one thing she was thankful for after coming to this village, because it lived so closely with the forests around it, the children were all taught to run across the limbs of the trees when they entered the academy. Downside to it though, because Kumo had entered so late, she was not quite as adept as the other children, and was prone to losing her footing every once in a while.

She fell to the ground, landing on her arm with a sickening crunch. Stifling a cry, she felt panic rise in her body as she heard the older men behind her, the distinct clinks of Kunai knives ringing throughout the trees. Her eyes darted around her looking for a somewhere, anywhere that she could go to stay out of sight of the men, and she smiled when she found a small hole in a nearby tree. She darted towards it and crawled inside, holding the scroll tightly in her arms, trying to ignore the pain in her left arm.

She pushed her chakra to be as small as possible as she heard a set of feet landing where she had just been moments ago.

"I know you're out there brat! Come out, come out where ever you are!" Mizuki's voice had taken a darker tone to it, and Kumo didn't care for it. "Come-on, I'll trade you information for the scroll." There was a short pause, obviously meant for Kumo to speak up and agree to the offer. "Well, I'll tell you anyways, and then pry the scroll from your cold, dead, hands when I kill you."

His voice was trailing through the clearing. He must have felt her chakra when she landed, but couldn't pinpoint her now that she had started to suppress it again.

"You know that buddy of yours? You want to know why everyone hates him, and by extension-you?" There was a dark laugh at the end of his question, and it chilled her blood. "Well the reason is-"

"Mizuki, no! It's forbidden!" Iruka's voice entered the clearing, and she could hear the sound of a weapon soaring through the air.

"And who's going to stop me?" There was another laugh, and Mizuki started talking again. "The demon nine-tailed fox attacked Konohagakure twelve years ago." Knives clinked together, and Kumo swore that she heard Iruka growling 'stop it' under his breath. "The story goes that the Yondaime Hokage killed it. But that's not true. You can't kill a being made completely of chakra, so he instead sealed it into a baby. And that baby in turn became the reincarnation of the demon himself!"

"STOP MIZUKI!" Kumo gasped as she heard the tell-tale squelch of a weapon cutting through someone's skin, and then a dark laughter.

"That boy was Naruto. He is the nine-taled fox demon. Everyone hates him for killing their families. Even Iruka hates him. Because it killed his parents!

"Lies," The word was gritted out, as if the speaker was in intense pain.

"They hate you for it too. With your bright red hair, you're easy to spot. And with how much the demon has improved since you got here. They start to talk."

A scowl was firmly in place across Kumo's face as she started to crawl out from her hiding hole.

"They say while he's the re-incarnation, they say you are the spirit of the demon, come back to teach him to finish the job he started all those years ago."

Anger rose up in Kumo's belly as she walked from around the tree to face the pale, blue haired teacher.

"Just because there is a demon sealed inside of him, does not make him the demon." She growled out her eyes narrowed. "When you seal a kunai in a storage scroll, does it become the knife?" She reached her right arm into the pouch secured at the small of her back and grabbed a knife. "When you pour soup into a bowl, does the bowl become of the soup?" She left the kunai fly with deadly accuracy towards the center of his face.

"Oh, did I make someone angry?" There was a taunting lilt to his voice as he used a substitution jutsu to switch places with a nearby log. That's alright, that will just make this more fun as I kill you!"

Kumo knew that she was out of her depth as soon as Mizuki started sending volleys of kunai and shuriken at her. She used kawarimi after kawarimi to keep out of the way from being hit with the knives, but after each jutsu, she could feel herself get more and more disoriented as she kept having to move out of the way so quickly to keep out of the way of the projectiles.

"Is that all you can do?" Mizuki cackled walking towards her as she finally came to a stop, pain wracking its way through her left arm. "Let's see if you can dodge this!" He pulled a large fuma shuriken off of his back, and quicker than Kumo could see, he left it fly towards her.

Kumo knew she wouldn't be able to dodge it with how close Mizuki was when he threw it, so she crossed her arms and braced herself for impact. She stood waiting for the blow, only to find herself being knocked backwards, and her back hitting the ground.

She kept her eyes closed for a moment, and felt small droplets of water hitting her face. She cautiously opened her eyes to see Iruka's face just above hers with tears streaming down his face, and the large shuriken protruding from his back.

"Kumo," he choked out. "No matter what happens, I do NOT hate you. Nor do I hate Naruto. You both make me proud EVERY single day with your determination to take on the world despite how others treat you." Tears were streaming down his face now, "I have so much hope and pride for the both of you and what you are going to do in the future, that I know despite this set back, you both will become an extremely formidable shinobi."

"How touching," she could hear Mizuki coming closer. "Such a shame that I'm going to have to kill you too, Iruka. You do know that this could have all been avoided if-" Mizuki kept talking as Kumo sidled out from underneath Iruka, just as he collapsed on to the ground from the shuriken wound across his back.

The rage burning in her belly returned as she heard the things that Mizuki was saying to Iruka. Afterall this time, she couldn't believe that she had trusted him over Iruka in the first place, and for the situation to have turned out like this, she knew that she had to do something to end this whole situation.

"If I give you the scroll, will you let us BOTH live?"

"Kumo, No!"

"Of course, kid."

"He's lying!" Kumo knew that he was lying at this point, but she needed a distraction to be able to get her plan to work.

She pulled the strap from around her shoulders and threw the large scroll as hard as she could at the older ninja. He caught it with ease, and laughed.

"I can't believe you are that stupid!" He walked closer to the smaller child, moving towards putting the scroll across his back.

Kumo quickly launched two knives at Mizuki's face, and smirked as he did exactly what she thought he would: use the width of the scroll to block his face from being hit, the only problem being that only one kunai lodge itself in the scroll, and the other passed straight through, narrowly grazing his cheek.

The look of shock on his face quickly changed to anger as he looked between the scroll in his hands to the red head standing in front of him with a smug look across her face.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" His face was turning a bright red in anger as he glared at the younger child.

"It's just a little trick that I learned," Kumo shrugged her shoulders and backed away from the man. "The branches found in the forest here are very useful little tools," the smug look across her face darkened as the 'scroll' in Mizuki's hands turned into a long, gnarled tree branch. "Now," she took a menacing step forward "If you ever hurt MY teacher again, I'll kill you!"

She slowly brought her left arm up to meet her right arm to form a cross, and growled out 'Kage-bunshin no jutsu!' hundreds of clones came into existence, and proceeded to beat Mizuki into a pulp, until he could move no longer.

Kumo cringed as the memories of the clones slowly returned to her, and as the last one poofed away, she walked to the immobile body of her teacher and stared down at him. "Thanks for trying to take advantage of me." She growled out as she turned back around towards Iruka. "Iruka-sensei, are you okay?"

There was a small chuckle from her brunette teacher before he started to answer "I've had a whole lot worse than this before." He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and looked Kumo in the eyes. "Where is the scroll? The real one. We need to get it back to the Hokage."

Kumo scratched at the fabric covering her cheeks, and her eyes crinkled up into an embarrassed smile. "It never left the Hokage's office."

"It what?" Iruka's eyes almost popped out of their sockets at the news. "So, you were bluffing the whole entire time?"

"I guess," she trailed off and looked up towards the sky. "Something seemed fishy about the whole thing, and I mean, he said that I had to steal the scroll. He never said that I had to bring him the real thing after all. My father always said that ninjas are to look underneath the underneath."

"You have a very smart father," Iruka smiled at her accepting her smaller hand as an aid to pick himself up off the forest floor.

"Hayashi, Kumo, you are to come with us immediately." Kumo looked up from her teacher and suppressed a shudder. The emotionless, ivory masks of the ANBU were looking down at her from their full height, and made her feel smaller than she already knew she was,

"As long as you can take Iruka-sensei here to the hospital to get him looked over!" She cheerily answered looking back over her shoulder to her teacher who was leaning heavily on the tree beside him.

An ANBU with an owl mask made a few hand signals, and a second ninja with a bear mask stepped forward put his arm around Iruka's shoulders and promptly disappeared.

Quicker then she could blink, Owl's hand was on her shoulder and the world around her started to shimmer out of view, just to shimmer back into view placing her in the middle of the Hokage's office.

"Thank you, Owl." The hand removed itself from her shoulder and Kumo looked out of the corner of her eye as the man put his right hand across his chest and bowed at the waist before disappearing out of sight.

"That was quite the predicament out there."

Kumo stared down at the ground, her hands folded as nicely as she could behind her back. The pain was still coursing through her left arm, but it wasn't as prevalent as it was an hour or so ago. She couldn't tell if it was because she had become accustomed to the pain or if it had already started to heal.

"But you handled it exceptionally well."

Kumo stole a quick glance up to the older gentleman before looking back down to the ground.

"Hiding the scroll in plain sight, so that if Mizuki had come to check was an exceptional plan. Hiding it as an item so common that any leaf shinobi would overlook it was….." there was a long pause, "ingenious."

Kumo finally looked up at the Kage, confusion in her eyes.

"You made an incredible plan when you realized things were not adding up the way that it should have, and you executed it in such a way that the traitor did not get away with the prize that he had wanted. A prize that would have endangered the whole of Konohagakure. For that, we are indebted to you. And for that, I, as the Hokage of the village am extremely pleased to grant you the rank of Genin via field promotion."

Kumo's jaw dropped, and she started to stutter, words not being able to fully form as she tried to express her confusion.

The elder shinobi simply laughed and pulled out a piece of fabric with a shiny metal plate from his desk.

"But I thought-" words finally started to come out in a sensible order.

"They only forbade you from taking the written test."

"But then-"

"They forget that I am the Hokage of this village, and I handle matters of Shinobi."

"But-"

"At that point, you were a civilian, falling under their jurisdiction. But now, after your show of skills, you are more than deserving of the title of Genin." He picked the hitai-ate off of his desk and handed it to the small girl. "Congratulations. Kumo Hayashi."

The red head slowly stepped forwards and grabbed the cloth from the elder man's hand, and stared at it as it sparkled in the limited light in the office.

"Thank you," she breathed out, her eyes wide in awe, as she tied the strip of fabric around her neck, the metal with the leaf symbol carved into it shining from where it poked through just above the highest clasped button on her jacket.

"You will meet up with the rest of your class, in one weeks' time, to receive your team placements." Hiruzen's eyes were shining with an emotion that Kumo couldn't quite place. "In that time, I would recommend you getting our arm looked at so you are in tip top shape to finally begin your ninja career."

"Yessir, thank you sir!" Kumo crossed her arm across her chest and bowed at the waist as she saw the ANBU do only moments earlier.

"Now head home, Naruto-kun has been worried sick about you."

Kumo gasped, remembering her blonde friend that she had promised to meet hours ago. "Good night sir!" She shouted as she ran out the door as fast as she could, the large wooden doors to the office slamming shut behind her.

"And have I got the perfect team to put you on," Sarutobi chuckled as his pencil scratched across the paperwork in front of him.

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"I still can't believe you became a genin on a field promotion!" Naruto was ecstatic as they bounced through the streets of Konoha the following morning. "And Mizuki was a traitor this whole entire time? I knew there was something up with that guy!"

Kumo just strolled lazily beside her best friend, her arm wrapped tightly to her body to prevent her from causing further injury to herself after the break to her arm the night before. They had tried to go to the hospital to get it fixed but the staff had kicked the both of them out before they could say hello. Her and Naruto had made do with the bandages that they had had in the apartment to keep her arm from being damaged any further while it healed, which lead them to now where they were heading to their favourite ramen stand to celebrate everything, and she meant EVERYTHING.

They were celebrating Naruto passing the exam with flying colours, they were celebrating her field promotion, they were even celebrating finally knowing why they were treated so poorly by most of the citizens of Konoha. It had come as a shock to Naruto to find that he had a thousand-year-old demon sealed into his stomach, but thanks to their fuinjutsu lessons from Minoru, Naruto understood that it didn't make him the demon itself, just the cage the protected the villagers from what was inside.

"Alright Old Man Teuchi! We want one of everything!" Naruto shouted pulling back the curtains to the ramen shop.

"A little ambitious are we today?" A laugh filled the area as the duo sat up on the stools.

"We're celebrating today!" Naruto stated and stuck his hand out and pointed a thumb back at his forehead where his Hitai-ate gleamed. "We're ninja's now!"

"Well that is a cause for celebration. Both of you?" Teuchi looked at Kumo, looking for her headband.

"Yessir!" She smiled, and moved the colour of her jacket slightly to fully reveal the hitai-ate.

"Well congratulations well deserved! Let's get you started with a house specialty!" the stand owner turned his back to the duo as they started to talk between themselves to make their celebratory noodles.

"Did I hear what I think I did?" A voice trailed into the stand and Naruto and Kumo groaned, pausing their conversation, and looking at the curtain that was pulled slightly open.

A mop of brunette hair a top a head with a feral grin was staring in at the two of them.

"I think I did Akamaru." There was a small yap of agreement from the small white dog. "This jokester is pretending that she passed and became a genin." There was a bark of laughter. "We all know that's not true. You were barred from taking it. I hope you realize you even wearing that hitai-ate is illegal."

"For your information, Dog-breath. I did become a genin. The Hokage himself gave me this headbeand." Kumo stuck her tongue out at her canine-esque acquaintance.

"What? I doubt that. The Hokage never gives things to losers. Losers like you that is." Kiba waltzed further into the shop and crossed his arms across his chest.

"It's legit Kiba. It was via field promotion. Hokage himself approved it." Naruto frowned crossing his arms as well. "She's officially a part of the graduating class."

"And they're celebrating. So, you're either going to sit down, or get out of my shop and stop bothering my costumers Inuzuka-san." Teuchi Ichiraku said joining the conversation as he set a bowl in front of the red head and the blonde, with an extra one in his hand for the unruly boy.

Kiba stood for a moment, a scowl across his face, before he finally decided to sit down next to the two.

"I can't believe they let you through, Tomato-paste."

"Nor I you, Dog-breath."

The three of them sat in amicable silence for several minutes until the peace and quiet was disturbed by the clanging of chopsticks against the side of a bowl.

Kiba and Naruto both looked up from their bowls to see Kumo sitting with her head cocked to the side as if listening to something.

"Is every-" Naruto was cut off by the small bark of Akamaru.

"What is it boy?" Kiba questioned the small dog, taking his eyes away from the smaller girl to his side.

"It's a dog." Kumo whispered, and Naruto's eyes went wide.

"Do you mean-?" Naruto's question trailed off as he too let his chopsticks clatter into the bowl.

"One long howl, followed by-"

"Three shorts and a long," Kumo cut Kiba off while jumping down from the bar stool. "Naruto, it's Daisuke." She took off running, leaving Naruto and Kiba staring at her form through the curtains that were waving in the breeze she created when she left.

"Kumo, wait up!" Naruto shouted throwing some cash down on the bar, and taking off running after his best friend

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I hope y'all enjoyed!

I wonder what will happen next….

Ja ne :D


	11. Chapter 11

I do not own Naruto!

Enjoy!

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Kakashi Hatake was many things. He was a prodigy in his own right, gaining the title of genin at just five years of age, and progressing through the ranks as quickly as he could. He became chunin at the age of 6, and then reaching the rank of jounin at the age of 10, and as of the age of 13 he had already entered the ranks of the ANBU where he just as quickly became a captain of the deadly organization.

During his years as a shinobi, he had earned several monikers ranging from Cold-Blooded Kakashi and Friend Killer Kakashi to his more commonly used moniker of Copy Ninja Kakashi and Kakashi of the sharingan.

The sharingan. The highly respected and protected doujutsu of the famed Uchiha clan that was almost completely wiped out several years ago, by a single man with the goal of proving how strong he was. Now, Kakashi himself was not an Uchiha, but the sharingan that he possessed was that of a teammate of his, and it was more of a sardonic gift that was given to him as his teammate passed on from this world to the next as the result of a mission gone wrong.

Now the mission was a success in the sense that they had completed what they were supposed to, but had ultimately lost the life of a comrade. A comrade that whether they knew it at that point or not, they had all held dear to their hearts. Kakashi realized this only years later, and due to this, decided to pick up one of the quirky traits of his late friend: tardiness. He would show up on time when it counted, but more often than not he would show up hours late for meetings and briefings, and today was no different.

Today he was actually twenty-six hours, thirty-five minutes, and forty-seven seconds late and counting. Not his personal record but he was enjoying taking his time on his stroll back from his mission.

It was an easy one, just escorting a merchant family to the next town over. It was only a C-rank mission, and way below his skill level with him being an A-Rank ninja, but he gladly took the reprieve and relished in being able to enjoy his beloved Icha-Icha book.

With his prized book in his left hand he slowly continued down the well-worn path to the village, allowing the wind to blow through his gravity defying silver hair. While the wind blew through his hair, the hair never once fell in his eyes as he had a Konoha hitai-ate tied around his forehead slanted just enough to cover the left eye socket that contained his gifted sharingan eye. He had a mask covering the bottom half of his face, leaving it so that the only visible portion of his visage was his right eye.

The Hatake wore the standard shinobi uniform which consisted of a navy long sleeved shirt and pants, as well as a green chunin flak jack. His pants were taped at the ankles and around his right thigh where he had a kunai holster placed, and the shoulders of his shirt, and the back of his flak jacket had the iconic orange spiral that many had come to associate with the village Hidden in the Leaves.

To the untrained eye, one would think that Kakashi Hatake was so engrossed in his book that he wasn't even paying attention. To a true shinobi though, they would see how his ears twitched towards each sound, and while he walked with a slouched posture, it was just the perfect mix of slouched and relaxed to where he would be able to react in a moment's notice.

They would even notice how he subtly avoid any and all items that would cause a noise or draw attention to himself should he bump into or stop onto the items. And as he was doing all of this, he was taking stock of his surroundings, straight down to the pitch-black Great Dane that was sitting awkwardly on its haunches in front of the gate. It looked as if it would have stood just over three feet tall and weighed a good hundred and fifty pounds or so.

As he walked around the Great Dane whose back-right leg was sitting at what appeared to be an uncomfortable angle he entered through the great gates of his village up to the guard post where two chunin, Izumo and Kotetsu where currently checking a team back in to the village that made Kakashi _almost_ audibly groan.

The team that was currently being checked in was team nine that was currently under the tutelage of Might Guy, the 'Green Beast' of Konoha. Might Guy was the Taijutsu master of the village and was currently raising a mini-me in the form of his student Rock Lee, and was creating a rather destructive force between the whole of his genin team which include Ten Ten and Neji Hyuga as well.

The silver-haired shinobi slowly waltzed up to the guard post to show his clearance credentials, but held back a few steps hoping (may haps praying) that they green clad shinobi wouldn't notice his presence, when the man himself turned around and with a bright, blinding smile shouted "Kakashi, my rival! I had no idea you were also out of the village!"

Kakashi paused for a moment, his eyes slowly moving up from the page as looked up at the man who was addressing him and responded "Hmm, did you say something?"

Guy instantly put his hands on his hips, "Such hip behavior from my rival! As my team has just gotten back from our most youthful mission, I declare a challenge against you!"

The challenge went ignored as Kakashi looked from Guy back to the Great Dane sitting just feet outside of the gate. "Who does the dog belong to?"

"We do not know, Hatake-san!" Guy's mini-me responded. "He started following us a mile away from the gate."

"He's injured; he limped the whole way, but he growled any time we tried to get too close to him to check." Ten Ten supplied crossing her arms across her chest. "Stubborn dog."

"We thought he was just a stray looking for food, but he refused to pass by that point." A stoic voice added in, and Kakashi let his lone eye stray across the group to view the pale eyed Hyuga, standing with a disapproving look across his face.

"How long has he been sitting there?" there was a disinterested tone in his voice, but Guy could tell that his lifelong rival and friend was interested.

"Ten minutes. He got here and howled a few times and then proceeded to sit down, almost as if he was waiting for something."

Kakashi hummed in response as he showed his credentials to the guards and turned back around in time to see the Great Dane to slowly stand up, his cropped ears standing straight up and his ears staring straight ahead giving him an almost formidable look to him. The shinobi in him told him to pay attention, and he let his hand drop down to the weapons pouch on his hip as he followed the dogs' line of sit to the clearing just inside the village gates.

There was a figure running straight towards them from within the village. Dust was kicking up from behind them, and it was obvious that they weren't trying to go unnoticed as another figure quickly came into view following the first as they both entered the clearing that was just inside of the gate.

The first figure was wearing a jacket that kept them well covered with the hood pulled up over their head, and the second had bright blonde hair, almost the colour of the sun.

The hooded figure took a step forward as a particularly strong gust of wind blew through the clearing, causing the hood to fall back from her head, bright blood red hair spilled from under the hood and cascaded down around her shoulders.

"Kushina-san-" Kakashi breathed as he took in the young girl. The girl wore a forest green v-neck battle kimono with black compression shorts. She had on black knee-high boots and a black trench coat style jacket that was worn on top of it. Her blood red hair flew in the wind and could have easily reached her waist, and her face was covered by a face mask that only allowed her the top portion of her face to be seen, where her two violet eyes where looking across the clearing trained on the dog sitting just outside the gate.

"She does look remarkably like Kushina-san, doesn't she?" Guy whispered, not wanting to be heard by his team. "Her name is Kumo Hayashi. She just graduated yesterday via field promotion."

Kakashi looked back to the girl and noted the hitai-ate tied around her neck, and to the one tied around the forehead of her blonde companion: Naruto Uzumaki. So, he had finally passed as well. While he would never show it outwardly, he was proud the unpredictable ninja had finally succeeded in becoming a ninja. He could only hope that who ever his teacher would be, would be able to lift him up and teach him properly like he deserved.

"KUMO-CHAN!" Hatake was pulled from his musing as the younger green-clad ninja shouted to the young red head.

He looked from the young boy to the red head standing still and silent in the middle of the clearing and noted the blank, almost clouded look across the girls face and he couldn't help but feel as if something was wrong.

The girl took a step forward and Kakashi watched as the girl's knee almost buckled as she put her weight forward, looking at nothing but the dog. The girl caught her balance, and he could hear her suck in a breath as she held her head high and continued to walk towards the animal at the gate.

He could feel the girl's chakra becoming more erratic the closer to the gate she got, and it almost felt as if the more chaotic that it got, the more chakra the girl seemed to have. He watched the girl as dust kicked up around her with each step, and with each step it seemed as if her chakra was becoming visible.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes as he realized that the girl's chakra was becoming visible, and taking on a very distinct _red_ colour. He stuck his hand inside his weapons pouch and let his hand grasp around the hilt of a kunai when he froze.

Killing intent. One so powerful, and so vile he had only felt it once before in his life was washing across the clearing. He stared at the girl cloaked in red chakra back to the blonde that had been steps behind her. The blonde who he KNEW was the only one who should have access to a chakra that colour, or a killing intent that vile due to a tenant of his.

He couldn't bring himself to move as his brain tried to process what this meant as he watched the blonde run up behind the red head and snuck his hand inside of hers.

Almost as quickly as the intent came, and the chakra had surrounded her, it was gone causing the ex-anbu captain to almost sigh in relief as question after question started to bombard him, but one in particular coming to the forefront: who, no, what was she?

The group watched as the girl walked out the gate and dropped down next to the dog wrapping her arms around its neck.

Kakashi pushed a little extra chakra to his ears so that he could pick up the dialogue that was being exchanged.

"Daisuke, where is he?" The girl's voice was almost melodic despite the emotion being held in it.

The dog, Daisuke, had remained quiet and he watched as the dog pushed something towards the girl. From his spot, Kakashi could only assume that it was a weapons pouch from its shape.

He watched the girl pick up the pouch and with shaky hands remove to items from within.

"No. Daisuke. This can't be. He can't be-" the girl's voice trailed off and Kakashi, despite the years of him being a shinobi, couldn't help the feeling as his heart clenched.

"What's happening?" Rock Lee piped up from besides him, and he saw out of the corner of his eye as Guy put his hand on the younger shinobi's shoulder to quiet him, obviously understanding the situation that was currently occurring.

Kakashi continued to focus on the duo sitting by the dog until they had started to stand up to come back into the gates. He had started to turn back to Guy and make his disappearance when something from his peripheral caught his eye: a flash of white. He turned back to see what had caught his attention when he felt his heart drop in to his stomach at the sight of what was in the girl's hands: a Konoha hitai-ate with bleach spots splattered across the band, and a porcelain white mask with the scowling face of a panther painted across it.

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Kumo was excited. The most excited that she had been since coming to this village. She had heard Daisuke's call, and that meant that her father was back.

The villagers would not longer pick on her or Naruto.

That thought alone was enough to send Kumo running even faster through the village despite Naruto's calls from behind her to slow down and let him catch up.

She was so excited to get to the front of the village, where she was no longer paying one hundred percent attention to where she was going and had managed to run her way straight in to the last person she had wanted to see today: Haruno Sakura.

Now don't get her wrong, Kumo didn't like Inuzuka Kiba either. In fact, she detested the both of them due to their behaviours. But. If she was the last kunoichi on earth and needed to pick a partner to help her out of a tight spot, without a doubt it would be Kiba over Sakura.

Kiba, like the rest of his clan, had a pack mentality. Meaning whether he liked you or not, if you were charged with being a part of his team, he would have your back. Sakura on the other hand, would rat you out over a bottle of shampoo, and that was without having her precious Sasuke-kun nearby.

"And what do you think you're doing, Copper-Topper?" Sakura sneered at Kumo.

"Look Pinky, I don't have time for this today. I'm in a hurry."

"Not in too much of a hurry to realize that you're rather OBVIOUSLY breaking the law."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I do have to go."

"Where did you get it. I bet Naruto gave it to you to wear."

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Now, can I go?"

"That hitai-ate. You didn't pass the test. In fact, you weren't even there for the test yesterday. You're currently impersonating a shinobi and are in direct violation of Konoha laws. I bet we could get Naruto in trouble for this as well since he gave his to you to wear." Sakura's arms were crossed across her chest as she glared at the younger girl.

"I was promoted via field promotion, Sakura. This hitai-ate is mine." Kumo leveled her own glare at Sakura walking past the pinkette only to have her grab onto her shoulder and hold her in place.

"I don't believe you."

"We don't have time for this Sakura. Let her go." Naruto had finally caught up with his red-headed friend. "Or do you want me to report you to the Hokage for threatening a fellow shinobi of the leaf?" Naruto cocked his head to the side, an innocent smile spread across his face. "Hmm?"

Sakura glared at Naruto and tightened her grip on Kumo's shoulder.

"Look, we seriously don't have time for this," Kumo muttered before bending her knees just enough and quick enough for Sakura to lose her balance. Side stepping out of the way as the girl fell, she took off running once again, and shouted over her shoulder, "See you at team placements, Pinky!"

"You should have just let her go, Sakura-chan. We did tell you that we were in a hurry after-all!" Naruto smiled.

Sakura picked herself up off the ground and furiously dusted the front of her dress off mumbling "I hate you both!" under her breath.

"No skin off our backs!" Naruto laughed, sticking his tongue out at the girl and then turned on his heal to run after Kumo.

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As Kumo got closer and closer to the area that she had heard Daisuke's howl coming from, she couldn't help but feel a pit grow large and larger at the bottom of her stomach. Scenarios were running through her head, each more heinous and gruesome than the last of the battle that had happened when her father had activated the fail-safe and sent her to Konoha as he fought the two missing ninjas.

Taking a deep breath as she ran, she tried to push the horrible thoughts out of her mind as she came in to the clearing just before the main gate to the village.

Standing in the clearing her eyes were instantly pulled to a mop of silver gravity defying hair and she felt her heart soar. Her father: he was hom-.

The owner of the hair turned around and instantly her heart plummeted straight from the sky where it was soaring to the bottom of the pit in her stomach and it made her nauseous.

A sharp gust of wind blew and she couldn't even be bothered to try and pull her hood back up over her head as her hair spilled down across her shoulders.

The wind brought on it the smell of the owner of the silver hair: the smell of parchment, a fresh book and dogs. Her father smelled so strongly of peppermint that this man couldn't have been him.

If it was possible her heart dropped even further as she noticed the man had a hitai-ate covering his right eye as well.

Her eyes flicked over to the giant dog standing outside of the gate and everything around her seemed to melt away.

As she took a step forward, she felt her knee buckle, but she forced her body to right itself before she could go crashing in to the ground.

" _It won't due for you to look week._ " A voice rang from the back of her mind, and Kumo almost paused in her steps towards Daisuke. She hadn't heard that voice in months.

Kumo sucked in a deep breath and continued to walk towards the pitch-black Daisuke. Her thoughts returned to the black hole that she had been banishing her thoughts to the last few months since she had appeared in Konoha. The thoughts from her imagination that explained every vicious and horrible reason as to why her father hadn't returned yet.

The thoughts swirled through her head as she got closer, and the worse the images turned in her head the worse the control over her chakra turned. She could almost hear her father telling her to keep her chakra in check as he had done so many times when she was younger. 'You've too much, pup. You need to keep it under control, always.' He would say and then smile at her and ruffle her hair.

She tried. Tried as hard as she could but her chakra was swelling at an enormous rate. She had forgotten how much she had. She clenched her fists by her sides as she tried to control the ocean of chakra, but each time she got close, an image of her father would pop to the forefront of her mind: dead and covered in blood.

"Just a little more!" She could swear that she heard the voice again, almost cheerful as the last of her now abysmal control over the immense chakra started to crumble.

As Kumo took the next step forward she flinched as something stung the skin across the back of her hands. She ignored it. Daisuke was so close to her now. Why was it taking so long to get to him?

The pain stretched further until it felt like it coated her entire body with small flames. Still she couldn't stop, and gritted her teeth as she pressed further.

" _PERFECT!_ " The voice shouted from the back of her mind, and Kumo started to stop as she saw her chakra rolling off her skin in waves.

As she brought her feet together to come to a complete stop, she felt a hand push itself into hers and a small voice whisper "What was shinobi rule number 25 again?" she felt the familiar, comforting chakra that she had come to associate with her pseudo brother, and almost chuckled that he was bringing up the Shinobi Code of Conduct now. "Keep it together a little longer. We have observers." He squeezed her hand, and Kumo felt herself gain control over her chakra, and the burning sensation across her skin all but disappeared. Kumo was so wrapped up in finally getting the rest of her chakra under control she completely missed the voice from the back of her head hissing " _Curse you Uzumaki! I almost had her!"_

The duo passed through the gate and stood in front of the Great Dane, and the young kunoichi dropped down on her knees next to her father's ninken and wrapped her arms around him and shoved her face into his neck.

"Daisuke-where is he?"

Moments passed and Daisuke said nothing, and Kumo could feel her heart drop lower and lower into the pit of her stomach.

She removed her face from the side of his neck and tried to look him in the eyes, but Daisuke wouldn't meet her gaze. He instead wiggled slightly from her grasp and pushed a small pouch towards her.

A confused look raced across her face and she reached a hand out and picked up the pouch. With a shaky hand she pulled the first item out and gasped.

~Flashback~

It was Saturday. Her father had left to drop Naruto off back home late Tuesday night, and reappeared for a brief ten minutes before gathering a bag together stating that he was called in to work.

'Don't leave the house' he had said a small smile gracing his face. 'I will know if you do.' He winked pointing to the seals that were placed just above each window and doorframe that led to the outside world.

'How long are you going to be gone?' Satsuki was curious. It had been a while since his work had called him out to be gone longer than a few hours.

'Should only be a day or two.' There was a small pause as he reemerged from his bedroom with a small backpack. 'There's enough food in the food to last you until I get back.'

'What's the job?'

'You know I can't tell you that,' there was a sigh in his voice that Satsuki almost missed.

'But whyyyyyy?' Satsuki had whined.

'Because it's necessary for your-'

'For my safety. Yeah I know.' She had scoffed. 'I don't understand what it is that you do that makes it so dangerous for you to tell me.' She rolled her eyes at the word dangerous and crossed her arms and stared at her father.

'You'll understand one day.' He ruffled her hair and headed back towards the door. 'Now I should be back by the end of the day Thursday at the absolute latest. See you when I get back, Pup.'

Her tou-san was supposed to be back almost two days ago now, and he was late. Not only was he late, but Daisuke had disappeared at some point within the last two days and she wasn't able to leave the house to go look for him.

Maybe Daisuke went to go look for him. Yeah. That's what happened.

Satsuki curled up into a ball in her bed and listened to the rain tapping on the window and slowly fell asleep.

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Satsuki bolted upright from her sleeping position. She blinked her eyes as she glanced around her trying to decipher what had woken her up.

After a few moments she noticed the bright flash of lightning and the low rumble of thunder from the storm going on outside.

Satisfied that the storm outside was what had woken her up, she laid back down and snuggled underneath the thick comforter on her bed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself when she noticed something odd.

She took another deep breath and could smell the faint odor of copper. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat back up in her bed, allowing the comforter to fall to the side. Stretching her senses out she could barely detect something moving within the house, and she was instantly on her feet quietly making her way to the hallway.

Silently she slipped down the hallway to where she had heard the noise, halting once she got to the end where the smell of copper filled her nose.

She twisted her head around the corner just enough to see into the entry way of the living room and her eyes took in the one thing that was out of place: there was something, more like someone, draped across the chair.

Their limbs hung awkwardly off the sides of the chair and they definitely didn't look comfortable. Their clothes seemed almost pitch black, except for the chest plate which appeared to be silver underneath the muck that covered it.

There was a small dripping noise that she had noticed as well. Not anything consistent enough to be a running faucet, but just enough to cause her to inch further into the room to discover what the noise was.

She only took a step further into the room when she discovered the noise was blood, slowly dripping out of the figure's hair onto the floor. She reached a hand out towards the figure, only to jump back and gasp as a bright flash of lightning illuminated a porcelain mask that was shading the figure's face.

She took a step backwards and instantly something cool was up against the back of her knees and she jumped from the shock of the coolness, and instantly turned around.

Looking down, she saw it was a dog, but due to the darkness in the room she couldn't tell its shape, and its smell was covered in the same copper, blood, smell that the figure was.

The dog moved to behind her, and again pushed its cool nose into the back of her knees pushing her down the hall that she had just come from. "Back to bed with you," a voice grumbled out.

She glanced behind her at the dog with her eyes wide before taking off running down the hall and silently closing her bedroom door behind her. She jumped back into her bed and threw the comforter over her head, squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as possible. It was just a dream. It was all just a bad dream.

~End Flashback~

She looked at the mask in her hands with disbelief. This was the same mask that she had seen on the figure draped across the chair that night. She thought it had been a nightmare. But here the mask was staring back up at her with its scowling face.

Her hands shaking if not more now than before, reached back into the pouch and pulled out the remaining item from within and it was all she could do to keep the tears from falling from her eyes.

The last item was a hitai-ate with the leaf symbol etched across the metal. The metal plate was attached to a bleach spotted stretch of cloth that smelled of – peppermints.

"No. Daisuke. This can't be. He can't be-" Her voice trailed off and she heard Naruto next to her sucking in a deep breath of air. She looked up from the hitai-ate to the enormous dog, her eyes glistening with held back tears.

Daisuke looked to his young charge and shook his head, and murmured a very low "I'm sorry," in his deep baritone voice.

Kumo felt her chakra start to lash out again at the unwanted confirmation, but took a deep breath to cam her emotions as she reminded herself of what Naruto had said earlier. There were people watching. Well-more people then normal. There was always an ANBU member tailing them.

Kumo took another deep breath and pushed her last thought out of her mind as she slowly stood up and turned around to face the gates to the village one last time. As she slipped the porcelain mask and the forehead protector back in to the pouch she noticed the silver haired man staring at her, an unreadable expression on his lone visible eye. She couldn't help but glare at the man as her heart clenched. He looked so much like her father it hurt.

She shook her head and looked back at Daisuke and crouched down to be on his eye level.

"I see that you're hurt. Are you able to still walk till we can get you to a veterinarian?" her eyes were smiling, but her voice shook with the emotions threatening to spill out.

"I have suffered far worse than this, my child. I will make it." The canine stood to his feet and Kumo noticed the true ailment afflicting him. His back-right leg was broken. She was no doctor but she could tell it was bad as well, if not horribly painful as the bone was jutting out of the skin. She cringed as she noticed dried blood around the puncture spot and the dirty colour of the bone. It had to have been broken for some time now.

"Let's hurry and get you fixed up then," once again a smile spread across her eyes despite the emotion filling her voice as she stood back up and headed back to the gate with a silent Naruto by her side.

They solemn trio entered through the gate and Naruto tugged her towards the guard post.

Kumo shot her friend a confused look but followed nonetheless. His head was held high despite the tears that he too was holding back from spilling across his lids as he walked the two up to the gate, ignoring the team of three and their eccentric sensei. Standing in front of the two ninjas within the check-in point, he stood ramrod straight, then crossed his right arm across his chest and placed his hand in a fist across his heart. Kumo, despite not knowing what he was doing, followed suit.

"Shinobi-san," Naruto's voice shook slightly, and he drew in a deep breath. "This is Daisuke, he-"

"Returning home from mission SRL-8436," Daisuke's gruff voice barked out, cutting Naruto off. "Pardon my appearance." Kumo's fingers twitched a bit as she felt a small flare of chakra, and saw the two chunin at the gate instantly snap to attention. "I would like to get these two home and report to the Hokage though, if it's alright with you?"

"O-of C-course!" The chunin with a bandage wrapped over the top of his nose stuttered out while quickly scribbling something down on the paperwork in front of him, and shoving it across the counter to Naruto.

Naruto gave a short bow and just as quickly grabbed the paperwork and stuffed it into his pocket and turned to head further into the village.

Kumo mimicked his actions and turned to follow suit, only to have a hand come down on her shoulder. She paused to look at the owner of the hand.

"Kumo-chan, are you alright?" the concerned face of Rock Lee's stared back at her, and it took everything she had to not break down into tears right there.

Taking another deep breath, and pasting a smile across her mostly hidden face, she gave a quick answer, "Yes, Lee, now I have to go get Daisuke medical attention. I'll find you later, okay?" She didn't wait for a response before she shrugged the hand off her shoulder and took off running to catch up with Naruto who had already pulled ahead with Daisuke.

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As long as the sun was out, the gates to the Inuzuka Clan compound were always open. They were guarded by oversized canines that exuded pride and demanded respect. They made even the most experienced of shinobi weary.

The dogs guarding the gate today stared, and almost glared down the small trio, only slightly backing down when they saw the limping Great Dane bringing up the rear as they made their way to the back of the compound where Daisuke insisted the clan member skilled enough to fix his leg would be. He said her name was Hana, and Kumo couldn't help but feel as if she had heard the name before.

They walked up the stairs to the house that Daisuke had pointed them to, and two couldn't help but feel as if they had just walked up to the clan head's house. Pushing that thought aside, with a quick glance towards each other, Kumo put a fist up and knocked on the door, and waited for someone to answer.

A few minutes had passed and the trio could hear someone coming closer to the door. With a creak the door swung open to reveal-

"Kiba!"

"Loser. Tomato-paste." The clan heir crossed his arms and glared back at them. "I had to pay for your ramen today after you ran off. Here to pay me back?"

If Kumo's heart could sink any lower it would be in the ground. She had forgotten about the ramen that was left unfinished and unpaid for.

"Actually," Naruto started to dig his toe in to the nonexistent dirt on the stoop. "We're here fo-"

"Brats, what are you doing on our doorstep this evening?" the sentence, while gruff and uncouth sounding, had a playful undertone to it and for once the two of them were excited that the Inuzuka matriarch had appeared.

"Inuzuka-sama, we were looking for Hana-san." Her voice started to waiver, earning her a questioning look from Kiba. "Daisuke said that she would be able to help fix his leg."

"We only fix dogs here. Not people." she stated, raising a brow as she crossed her arm.

The two moved out of the way to show the dog that had once again sat down with his leg sticking out at an awkward angle in front of him.

"Wait? Aren't you?" Confusion flashed quickly across the matriarch's face before she glanced down at the canine's leg. "How the hell did you manage that?"

"You don't think I planned this, do you?" Daisuke barred his teeth at the older woman. "She here, or not?"

Tsume did not answer, and instead walked over beside the hound and crouched down, wrapping her arms around him and lifting him up, ignoring the growl that escaped his mouth.

"I can walk!"

"Not till that leg is patched up. Kiba!" Kiba's head whipped to the side to face his mother. "Go get your sister and tell her to meet me in the OR." The woman started marching from the house, down the street only looking over her shoulder once to shout "NOW."

Kiba took off running the other way down the street, presumably to get this Hana girl, and Naruto and Kumo glanced at each other for just a moment before they too, started running.

Before they knew it, they were caught back up with the head of the canine family, barely making it in through the door before it slammed shut behind them.

"You two wait here." The elder kunoichi grunted as she went through a further set of doors.

The two just stood staring at each other, brains only starting to fully catch up with everything that had happened over the last hour or so.

They slowly lowered themselves down on to a set of chairs, not even bothering to look as the door to the streets slammed open and someone went running by. The same doors the that Inuzuka Matriarch and gone through minutes again opened and slammed shut as the person ran through the doors and complete silence washed over them.

Kumo pulled her knees up to her chest and laid her head on Naruto's shoulders. She felt a weight settle on the top of her head as Naruto leaned his head on top of hers and took a shaky breath.

She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, her brain barely registering the faint smell of salt, and the small droplets of liquid dropping on to the top of her head.

"He's gone." Her voice cracked as she said it, and tears stung at the corners of her eyes. "He's gone." Tears started to spill over her lids, and she could see bright yellow eyes staring back at her as she blinked. "I. Hate. Snakes."

All that could be heard in the room was the two children crying as one shadow puffed out of existence and one figure edged their way out of the room, allowing the door to quietly swing shut behind them.

011011011011011

Kakashi made his way up the stairs to the Hokage's office, ignoring the calls of the secretary stating that he wasn't seeing any visitors right now.

There was only one thing on his mind and it was the masked red head and that ninken. From the vicious red chakra that leaked from the girl, to the scowling panther mask that she held in her hands, to the glare she leveled at him that would have made a lesser man cower in fear, he had questions, and NO-ONE was going to keep those from him.

He strolled right up to the imposing doors of the Hokage's office and after leveling a gaze of his own back at the secretary causing her 'eep' and turn back the way she came, he pushed the doors open and waltzed in to the office.

His entry went unnoticed by most of the occupants of the room as they were currently in the middle of an extremely heated argument.

"You went too far this time, Hiruzen!" The elder Homura was shouting at the Hokage, and Kakashi decided it was in his best interest to put his experience in the ANBU to good use as he leaned against the wall and blended in with the shadows around him. "You saw the paperwork given to you by the Daimyo. She wasn't to become a genin!"

"When he sees that you went over his call, he will not be pleased!" Koharu added in, slamming her hands down on his desk.

"I didn't go against anything he had ordered of me actually." The God of Shinobi chuckled, lighting a pipe.

"Then how is she now a genin?" Homura crossed his arms across his chest, his eyes peering down through his green rimmed glasses. "She was clearly spotted running through town with a Hitai-ate tied around her neck. How do you explain that? Or do we need to go and punish the child for impersonating a shinobi?"

"No, she is a genin," Hiruzen took the pipe out of his mouth and let out a long breath. "The paper clearly stated that she couldn't take the genin exam. Which she didn't."

Kakashi noted both elders opening their mouths as if wanting to say something, but they were immediately quieted as the Hokage put up a hand.

"She demonstrated the necessary qualities to show that she was ready to become a genin without the official exam."

"What she demonstrated, was that she can sneak into your office and steal important documents." Koharu huffed.

"She apprehended and uncovered a traitor, and then used the knowledge that she had learned during the 'test' that she was given to make sure that he was dealt with accordingly that led to the least amount of damage to the village." There was still a smile across the old man's face. "In fact, the Forbidden Scroll never left my office." The two elders got extremely quiet and they raised an eyebrow at their old team mate as he pulled something from with in the desk. "It was here the whole time."

"You must be losing your mind, old man. That's a twig."

"Is it?" The smile across the leader's face got wider as he tossed it to Elder Homura.

The gentleman caught the so-called branch and held it close to his face scrutinizing every detail before he looked up. "How did she do it?"

Kakashi himself raised a lone eyebrow, trying to decipher what was going on from his spot in the corner. It looked like a twig, but in the shinobi world, just because it looked like a dog and barked like a dog, didn't mean that it was a dog.

"The girl has special talents, and I myself do not fully comprehend how she is able to do transformations like this, but-" Hiruzen put his hand out for the piece of wood to be deposited back into his hand. "To undo this specific one," he reached up and plucked off the one lone leaf on the edge, "You just have to find the weak spot and it unravels." He set the item down on his desk and the all watched in awe as it flickered in and out of existence until the forbidden scroll was sitting on his desk, sitting in the same spot as the twig previously had been placed.

"This is a dangerous game that you're playing Hiruzen. I still think it would have been wise if you had given the girl to Danzo. You made a mistake with not giving the Kyuubi container to him, and now you're making the same one with this girl, you should reconsider your choices."

"Koharu, I have made my decision." Sarutobi's voice took a hard-steeled edge to it. "The girl is going to be assigned to a genin team with the rest of the graduates, and that's final." Hiruzen's eyes flashed to the corner that Kakashi was currently residing, and Kakashi couldn't help but feel like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar for a moment.

"Now if you would all kindly vacate my office." It was phrased as a question out of politeness, but the demand was clearly understood. "I have another meeting to attend to."

Kakashi stood in his corner and watched as the two elders left the room grumbling, before he stepped out of the shadows.

"Kakashi-kun. How was your mission?" The Hokage smiled at the man. "You are a little late by my records are you not?"

Kakashi had the grace to look slightly embarrassed as he reached his hand back and scratched at the back of his head. "What can I say, I got lost on the road of life."

The elder Hokage did nothing but chortle knowing that the young Hatake most likely got 'lost on the road of life' with a civilian from the next town over.

Hearing the Hokage chuckle, Kakashi sighed, knowing that he had been caught. There really was no hiding anything from the God of Shinobi. "The mission was a success. Escorted the merchants to their destination without any major hiccups."

Sarutobi nodded his head and made a few scratches of his pen across the papers on his desk. "Now, did the hiccup happen during the mission, or once you had returned?" He set his pen down and folded his hands a top of each other as he leveled a gaze at Kakashi.

"I saw a girl when returned home. Red head. Seemed to be close with Naruto. Is that who you were just discussing?" Kakashi got straight to the point. He never did like muddling around with idle chit-chat when he had questions he wanted answered.

"Ah, Kumo Hayashi. Yes. What about her?"

"Who is she?"

"The daughter of a close friend." After a moment Kakashi realized that the older man wouldn't be saying any more, so he continued speaking.

"There was a ninken at the gate as well. She seemed shaken up to see it." He observed as the Hokage's visage became stern, prompting Kakashi to proceed. "In fact, she was so shaken up, she seemingly lost control of her chakra. Which it appears that she has a lot of it mind you. Her chakra took on a very specific _red_ colour, and the killing intent that rolled off of her, mind you only for a split second, was very reminiscent of something that we both know is contained within a certain blonde. A certain blonde, who ran up to her while her chakra was out of control, reached his hand into hers, and all of a sudden, the chakra was under control again. I would have liked to chalk this all up to what appeared to be a child of a shinobi learning that her father had just died in the line of duty, when I noticed two items that were passed to her by the dog. One of which was a porcelain mask." He watched as the Hokage's face softened for a moment, confusion passing across his face. "A panther mask."

The reaction was instantaneous. Hiruzen Sarutobi snapped his fingers and barked, "OUT." And Kakashi could feel the presence of four different shinobi, ANBU, disappear from the room. "Activate." Kakashi could feel chakra dance around the room as a privacy seal was enacted.

"The dog walked up to the gate and stated he was back from mission SLR-8346. Naruto called him Daisuke. But I know him as Unmei, Doom, The Hellhound of ANBU Team Omega. The team which was led by Panther, known in the Bingo Books with a flee on sight warning as Botsu, Death." Kakashi crossed his arms across his chest. "What does he have to do with this red head with the demonic chakra?"

"Kakashi, what I am about to tell you, is an S-Rank secret and is not to leave this room. Understood?"


	12. The Night the Lies Started Pt 1

I do not own Naruto!

Enjoy! :D

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Bright orange tendrils of heat licked the sky as flames grew in intensity and spread across the east side of the village. The fire started at the barrier wall that separated the large village from the woods that surrounded it. The forest from which it pulled its name from, and the forest which protected it from outsiders. No one had predicted that the village would need help protecting itself from something that had happened within.

It should have been noticed. The turmoil that was growing from within.

Villagers had been going missing. It wasn't anything at an alarming rate. Just one every now and again, at such a pace where it would seem that they were just taking trips to other nearby villages. Those who had gone missing never had family, and they stayed to themselves, so no-one really noticed that they had gone until it had been months later.

That all changed just nights prior when two different people had gone missing on the same night.

An alert was raised. Nothing big enough to alarm the village, but something to put the Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, or ANBU, unit on edge. The black cloaked ninja raced through the shadows of the village trying to decipher the clues that would point them in the direction of the two missing civilians.

The only problem: there were no clues.

The first civilian that had disappeared was a small child almost four years old. A child with hair the colour of the sun, and eyes as blue as the ocean. He was an orphan, had been for his entire life, surely someone that would never have been noticed missing if he wasn't already under the watchful eye of the ANBU.

There was a five-minute gap where the boy wasn't being watched over by the careful eye of the highly trained ninja as the shift change was occurring, and within that small gap of time he had vanished as if he was never there to begin with. No noise, no scents, no nothing.

The young ANBU with an owl mask, under different circumstances wouldn't have batted an eye at a child disappearing that quickly. Children are after all, unpredictable and have a tendency to get in to trouble and slip out of sight. With a quick outward flick of his chakra he realized that this wasn't the case and quickly appeared inside the orphanage and marched straight up to the matron, demanding to know the whereabouts of the young child.

Despite the abrupt appearance of the menacing looking man, the woman lazily dragged her eyes to a door on her left and shrugged her shoulders. "In its room I would assume."

The man reached an arm out and took a hold of the front of the woman's shirt. "Do you think I would be talking with the likes of you if he was?"

At this point the woman started to shake as killing intent slowly leaked from the bird masked shinobi.

'Y-y-you're g-going to sc-scare the o-o-other children!" she shrieked, her hands grabbing at the man's arms trying to get him to put her down.

"Where is the boy?!" The ninja demanded his voice low.

"If the monster isn't in its room then I don't know! The door hasn't opened!" The words spilled out of the woman's mouth in one quick jumble. "If it's not there then the demon probably slipped out the window."

The ninja tossed the woman to the side, and turned his back on her, a sneer unseen from behind his mask. "I wouldn't get too comfy. We will be back to question you further." He said over his shoulder as he walked out the front door.

The man slipped into the nearest set of shadows, disguising himself from view, and again reached his senses out to try and pinpoint the unique chakra that the young child contained within himself.

It was just gone. As if he was never there to begin with. Weasel had been watching him over the last eight hours. He was professional in his job, and wouldn't have given him misinformation to cover his own backside. Something strange was going on, and he didn't like it. There was only one thing that gave him solace as he hightailed it to the Hokage's office: knowing that Inu was out on a mission, and wouldn't kill him. Yet.

On the other side of the village a young man with long flaming red hair was finishing up his paperwork within the main office building of the Konoha Military Police force. He wasn't a member of the police force, so to speak, it was difficult to get in to the force if you weren't an Uchiha, but he still insisted on assisting from time to time when the force was a little understaffed.

Now the force would never outwardly admit that they were low on staff, as they were always 'recruiting', but with all the increase of civilians disappearing, it was difficult to not be stretched thin. The red-head knew that Uchiha Fugaku was doing all that he could to investigate, but after a point they almost had to swipe them under the rug. In his words, "People of that standing go missing all the time. Sometimes they just don't want to be found."

Now he didn't agree with the elder Uchiha's words, so he did everything he could in his spare time to research into what was going on. He didn't have much time as he was almost constantly out of the village on missions, but it pained him knowing that so many people had been disappearing from under their noses. He had made it his personal mission to comb through every last detail of each person left unaccounted for within the village.

He had to have had close to fifty files stretched across the table that he had called his desk, just trying to work out the details. Most of the ones who had disappeared had vanished without a trace. Their homes were spotless, and any traces of their persons had literally _vanished_ in to thin air. It was something that should have been impossible to do for a civilian. So that meant that they had to be dealing with a shinobi, or at least someone who was skilled enough in kidnapping to make sure their targets couldn't be found. But that brought on a new problem: how were they able to get away with it inside the village of all places, where there were so many elite shinobi that were constantly in the village?

The man was brought out of his musings as the bell on the front door jingled alerting to the occupants of the room that someone was entering. Looking up from the files he saw a woman with long raven coloured hair and a purple coloured dress entering the room, her dark black eyes betraying the concern the she obviously tried to hide from those within the hall.

"Mikoto-sama!" a gentleman with the same shade of her as her exclaimed, running up to her. "We didn't expect to see you here today. Is everything all right?"

"Motoki-san," the Uchiha matriarch regarded her clansman "I was wondering if you had seen Momo-chan today?"

"No ma'am, I've been in the barracks all day. Did something happen?"

"She was supposed to come around for tea this afternoon and she never showed."

Overhearing the conversation, the red head felt his heart skip a beat. Uchiha Momoko was a very capable kunoichi in her own right, but she was currently a very pregnant woman, who was expecting her new child any day now.

The man stacked the files together neatly and stood up. Brushing his long locks behind his ear he walked up to the Uchiha matriarch and offered a small bow. "Uchiha-sama. Please allow me. I'll go see if I am able to locate Momoko-san."

"Ah, Minoru-san!" a smile lit up the woman's face "I didn't even realize that you were here!" She reached a hand out and laid it atop the gentleman's shoulder. "I'm sure she just got sidetracked at the market, you know how talkative the girl is, but with her due date so close, I would really appreciate it if you could!"

"It would be my pleasure," the man gave another bow as Mikoto took her hand off his shoulder. "I'll drop by the compound later to let you know what I find."

Mikoto smiled at the young man in front of her, he wasn't too much younger than she was, but he was always to perfect example of professionalism. His bright green eyes smiled as his mouth turned upwards, showing off a toothy grin. His long blood red hair was contained in a low ponytail that reached down to his middle back, only a few strands were left loose to be pulled behind his ears. His clothing was that of a standard Jonin, with black shinobi pants and sandals, and a green chunin vest pulled over top a long-sleeved black shirt. Despite being off the clock, he was prepared for anything that could be assigned to him at a moment's notice and had multiple weapon pouches attached to the waistband of his pants, and a kunai holder attached to each leg.

"I would appreciate that, Minoru-san. Thank you."

The man quietly left the building thinking of the young Uchiha. She had long black hair, much like everyone else in her clan, but it hung in ringlets around her face when it wasn't contained in a bun at the top of her head. Her eyes were a soft black colour, not nearly as heard looking as those of the rest of her clan, and she had the sweetest smile that would cause her lovely eyes to curve upwards when she was truly happy. She truly was the opposite of so many in her clan, and was as down to earth as one could get with being born as an Uchiha. But she was able to use that to her advantage as well, she was a tough fighter, and she would wait until you were wrapped around her finger until she struck, taking the enemy down quicker than a blink with her quick acting poisons.

She was loved by all, in and out of her clan. There was even talk of her becoming ANBU within the next few years, or joining the T&I department with her penchant for poisons. That all changed though, when it was discovered that she was pregnant.

It wasn't uncommon for kunoichi to get pregnant, even more so for one to become pregnant out of wedlock. It was an occupational hazard that one had to be extremely careful about. There were ways to avoid it though, and especially if one was as skilled in poisons as Momoko was, it was a hazard that should it have happened and she not want it to, that she could have made it so no-one had known.

She didn't though. She was so determined to carry the baby to term, and kept much about the coming child a secret to all but a select few. The one piece of information that she refused to give though was the child's father, and it made the council furious. The Uchiha was a founding clan of Konohagakure, and it infuriated the council that the father of the child could have been a no-name civilian, and some bastard child could eventually unlock the doujutsu that they had strived so long to keep unique to the Uchiha clan.

The clan council had tried to have her abort the baby, and when that plan failed, they went to the Hokage and the shinobi council. The Hokage put his foot down quicker than you could say the word 'Jutsu' and denied that request, the shinobi council backing his answer, stating that they would not help diminish the will of fire by acquiescing to that request.

Continuing to keep her head up despite everything that had been going on around her, Momoko still kept her silence of the name of the father and had moved to the furthest section of the compound, so that she could stay as far out of sight as she could of the rest of her clansmen.

Minoru actually admired the woman as she would still go out daily and chat with the civilians, asking about their days and how their families were. No-one would have known what was going on in her daily life if they had not already been privy to the information. That's what made her deadly as a kunoichi though, her ability to keep secrets and keep up facades despite the situation.

It wasn't like her, though, to not show up to pre-arranged meetings like the one she had with Mikoto. That's what put him on edge. The woman was prompt as a shinobi and that bled over in to her daily life. While she could be moody and childish at times, she always showed up when and where at the appropriate times.

He strolled through the streets of the village a little quicker than he normally would as he kept his ears and eyes open for anything that would point out that the peach named Uchiha had been there at some point through the day.

He had helped her shop a few times previously so he knew the locations she tended to stop within the markets, and a few stops later he quickly learned that no-one within the little shops had seen her during the day. That in and of itself was worrisome as the woman loved to take walks, and hated being cooped up in the house all day, so for no-one to have seen her at all could not have meant anything good.

Continuing on his way he decided to pop in to the hospital to check there. She was due in a few days after all, and it wasn't uncommon for the little parasites to come early after all.

A few words with the nurses later, and he was back on his way again. The staff within the hospital had not seen her since her appointment a few days ago.

Minoru was coming down to the last straw. She was way to far along to have been assigned a mission, even one as simple as a D-rank would be too difficult for her right now with her restrictions. At this point there was only one place that she could be that he hadn't personally checked, that he could only assume that Mikoto had checked before coming down to the precinct: her home.

Uchiha Momoko's house was a small little cottage at the far edge of the compound. It was a small building that was far enough away as to not draw attention to herself, but close enough that if there were ever any trouble, someone within the compound would be able to assist.

As Minoru got closer to the compound, he couldn't help the pit that was growing in his stomach, telling him that something was wrong. Keeping up appearances, he waved at the gate guards as he walked in to the compound and headed down the dirt pathway to the quaint cottage. For what felt like the thousandth time, he flicked out his chakra for a moment, trying to pick up the young woman's gentle feeling chakra when he stopped in his tracks.

Her chakra was gone.

He started running towards the small cottage his mind running wild.

He slowed when he got close to the house. Looking around he saw nothing truly out of place, so he walked up the small staircase, willing his beating heart to slow down.

Crossing the threshold into the house, he flicked his chakra out again, and the pit in his stomach grew ever deeper. There was no trace of her chakra in the house.

Outside a building, the absence of residual chakra could be explained. Heavy rains and wind would blow the chakra from the air and scatter it, making it difficult for even the most skilled tracker to find the source. Inside a building though, it was intentional. When one lived in a building for even more then a few days, their chakra would slowly start to settle into everything, and even years after leaving a building, one could never truly erase someone else's chakra, it almost became a part of the building itself. Unless it was just built, there was no way for a building to be void of chakra, yet here he was. In a house that he knew Momoko to be residing in, and yet it was barren of chakra.

The red-headed shinobi took a further step in to the small cottage trying to gain a few more details as to what had happened. No matter how hard he looked though, he wasn't able to find anything. It was in as pristine condition as it had always been when he stopped by to assist the young woman with groceries or other basic necessities during her pregnancy.

He was just about to leave the house to report back to Mikoto when he caught the clue that he was looking for. He took a deep breath and wondered how he didn't catch it earlier.

Now, he was no Hatake, but his nose was as good as any other. When one was trying to cover their tracks, sometimes they would do a little too good of a job. There was one tool that he had used often in his career as a shinobi, and that was smoke screens. Usually they did what their name implied and cause the appearance of smoke so that one could make their escape as quickly as possible while trying to create a distraction.

There was one type though, that did not create a smoke screen, it simply eradicated every smell within the area. It was used to disorientate trackers so that they couldn't pick up the scent of their targets. It was a tool that was used to cause as little distraction as possible. So that no-one would notice a thing was off until it was too late, and it wasn't something that was used on comrades.

Taking one last look around the small room he made a decision and disappeared with a small pop.

Reappearing with a similar pop, he steeled his eyes on the figure ahead of him and instantly dropped down to one know and lowered his head.

"What is the meaning of this?" the voice asked, annoyance clearly evident.

"I'm sorry for breaking protocol, Hokage-sama, but it is for a matter of upmost importance." Minoru's voice was low and even. "Uchiha Momoko has gone missing."

There was a silence that almost echoed through the office room.

"What do you mean missing?" The Hokage almost growled out, his eyes narrowing.

"I was at the barracks earlier today when-" There was a small rush of wind in the room that caused Minoru to stop recounting his tale.

"Hokage-sama-" an Owl masked ANBU suddenly appeared in the room, he too dropped into a kneeling position.

"I'm guessing no-one likes listening to protocol today." There was almost an amused lilt in the man's voice despite the cross look on his face.

"The jinchuriki is missing."

Everyone froze at the words of the ANBU, and the temperature seemed to drop almost ten degrees.

"What. Do. You mean. That he. Is. Missing?"

"I had just started my shift. Took over for Weasel, sir. The boy was unattended for five minutes at maximum. I went to my post and he wasn't there."

"And did you not search for him?" The God of Shinobi growled out the question, and Minoru had to do everything in his power to not start shaking in his boots. The man truly was a formidable ninja.

"Even if I wanted to, sir, I wouldn't have been able to. His chakra was gone." Minoru picked his head up and looked at the ANBU, his eyes wide. "Felt like it was gone for ages, the only person within the village who might have been able to track him is Inu and he's out on that S-Ranked mission."

"It was the same with Momoko." Minoru stated, both the Hokage and the Owl faced ANBU turned to look at him. "There was no trace of her chakra, anywhere. And when I went to her house, the entire place was wiped of smells, it was as if she hadn't even lived in the building. She's just gone."

This was not good. Both Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Momoko had gone missing on the same day. Momoko would have been a high target due to her being of the Uchiha clan. Naruto's status as a jinchuriki, while known throughout the village, was an s-ranked secret, so no-one outside the village should be aware. No-one should even know about his parentage, so that would make him even less of a target, unless-.

"This was an inside job." Minoru breathed out, looking up to the Hokage.

"Excuse me," the Fire Shadow said, raising an eyebrow.

"Were there any disturbances at the gate, lately?" Minoru looked to the ANBU next to him, and waited for him to nod or shake is head before continuing. "Did anything out of the ordinary happen today?" The Hokage continued to stare straight at Minoru. "Who else would know the procedure of the ANBU watching the young Uzumaki, to have known the precise five minutes that no-one would have been watching him to be able to snatch him, wipe all traces of himself as well the child, and get out without being caught by the ANBU? It would have to be someone from the inside." The inhabitants of the office got quiet as they thought about what the red head was saying. "And how would an outsider now that there was an extremely pregnant Uchiha who is shunned by most of her clan, almost a perfect combination to be able to kidnap her as well as wiping all trace of it before being caught by anyone else?!"

A stern expression crossed Sarutobi's face before he slammed a fist down on his desk, scattering paperwork across the desk and the floor. "I want the borders closed, and the gates shut. No-one gets in or out without my approval!"

The room was silent for a moment, and no-one moved.

"Did I stutter?" The man shouted, and instantly the Owl-masked shinobi saluted the elder and disappeared. "Rabbit!" Instantly, another shinobi materialized out of thin air. "I want your best tracking team looking for the two. Get on it now!" The shinobi gave a curt nod and he too disappeared. "Minoru!"

The man in question looked up to the village leader, ready to receive his mission to help with the searches.

"Go home." Minoru looked sharply at the Hokage, confusion written strongly across his face.

"Sir?"

"I know you have been researching the civilian disappearances, I am sure that this is related. You have a clever mind. Find the clue that we have all been missing."

Minoru saluted the Hokage, a look of determination on his face as he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. He was upset that he couldn't be out there actively finding the two missing citizens, but he knew that this was important. He wouldn't let the old man down.

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The last three days had passed quickly, and Minoru had gotten very little sleep as he continuously combed through every aspect of the cases that they had. He'd admit that there wasn't much information, but he dug into the information that was contained in the missing persons reports, the evidence if there was any, and eye witness recounts from their neighbours and friends if applicable.

Minoru, on several occasions, had almost given up. It had seemed impossible. He had read these cases over a thousand times before the Hokage had tasked him with this and it had seemed impossible even then. It was a mission now though. He _HAD_ to discover the missing clue. He _HAD_ to find Momoko and little Naruto.

The victims had all been loners. Rarely talked to their neighbors. Only reached out to family when they needed to. Had the least amount of possessions that one could have. Never had any visitors-.

Well. There were several who had a visitor days before they had ended up going missing. A Konoha shinobi. They were known to do wellness checks every once in a while, just to make sure everything was alright.

Minoru looked back through the first report stating that the missing person had received a visitor just a few days prior. The witness stated that the shinobi had long greasy black hair, and pale, almost seemingly translucent skin.

He glanced over the next report, and it showed a similar description of the visitor: sheet white skin, and dressed in all black, the witness thought that it was an ANBU.

The next three reports were written similarly, giving him a full description of the man. Greasy black hair, with pale white skin, wearing black shinobi sandals and grey chest plate armour. The man had apparently moved deftly through the streets, and one witness claimed that he heard the man almost hiss like a snake.

Orochimaru.

He had no reports from the barracks stating that Orochimaru was ever approached about speaking with these people before their disappearances, and Minoru could only assume that it was due to his title as a Sannin.

That was going to change. Minoru had just started to get his answers and he wasn't going to stop until he had them all.

He got up from his kitchen table, leaving the folders scattered across the table and jumped out the nearest window looking for any trace of Orochimaru that he could. It shouldn't be too hard, it's quite difficult to get the smell of snake out of anything after all.

He found several leads, but they all lead him to a dead end. It wasn't until after night had fallen that he finally got a whiff of snake that not only had to have been fresh, but couldn't have been a decoy.

As he followed the scent, he couldn't help but worry about how the night would play out. It was October 10th after all. The villagers were all unaware of what was going on within the inner workings of the village and were celebrating the defeat of the Kyuubi only four years ago, unaware that the child who kept them safe from the demon itself was currently missing.

He weaved in and out of the villagers who still crowded the street despite the late hour as he followed the scent further from the town center and closer to the edge of a small forest that laid just within the village walls. He walked up to the edge of the woods and felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge, alerting him to a potential danger.

Minoru put his hands up in to a cross seal and mumbled "Kage-bunshin no jutsu!" and an identical clone of himself appeared next to him.

Putting his hand up flat in front of him the clone grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it down revealing a portion of its chest to Minoru. Placing his hand on the exposed portion of skin, he applied a sizable amount of chakra and whispered "Fuin!"

Removing his hand from the clone, he quickly inspected the work and clicked his tongue in approval. "It's been a while since I've done that, but it should hold. You should be as sturdy as I am now."

The clone saluted the original as it awaited its orders.

"I want you to keep close, but keep hidden. I don't know what's going to happen when we get there, but I have a feeling that it's not going to be good."

The clone nodded and seemingly disappeared into the forest around them to stay hidden and follow the original.

Minoru took a deep breath and headed into the forest, following to the scent of snake as it led further and further into the trees, until he eventually came to the front of an old dilapidated building.

"Is this a joke?" Minoru sighed as he looked at the obviously uninhabited building.

"I'm afraid not." Minoru jumped at the voice, and looked over his shoulder to look at the person who had snuck up on him. The man had spikey shoulder length hair, black shinobi pants, and a grey armour chest plate on top of a chunin vest. With the two red lines that ran from his eyes it could only be one person.

"Jiraiya-sama-"

"He's here." the man took a step further "There's no mistaking the stench of my teammate."

"Are you sure?" Minoru whispered looking at the man from the corner of his eye. "Do you know how to get in?"

"I think we'll just try to front door." There was an amusement to his voice that Minoru didn't quite like.

He followed the sannin in through the front door of the old shed and they were instantly greeted with a large staircase that seemed to plummet into the earth.

"You want to go first, Princess, or should I?" Jiraiya laughed, causing Minoru to cross his arms and frown at his immaturity. This was a serious situation and the man was cracking jokes.

He brushed ahead of the man and took the lead climbing down the stairs, dropping further and further into darkness.

When he finally reached the bottom and stepped off the staircase, he was surprised when the halls instantly lit up, torches along the wall coming alive with fire.

"So much for coming in unannounced." Jiraiya mumbled from behind him. "Come-on. We have to make quick work of this. Let's find the kids."

Minoru paused in his step and looked back at the sannin with a confused look on his face.

"You thought I just showed up for a social visit with the snake? I think we've both come to the same conclusion by now. He's the one stealing people, and he's got a couple of someones that we are both looking for." He had a steely glint in his eyes. "You coming with, or you going to run back like a scared little girl?"

Minoru matched the look in his eyes to Jiraiya. "I wouldn't dream of backing down. Now I think we've got work to do."

"That's what I was hoping for." Jiraiya clapped the younger shinobi on the shoulder, before turning on his heel and taking off running down the hall. "Let's find what we're looking for before he finds us."

The two ran down the hall, splitting up to cover more ground checking the contents of each room, leaving no stone unturned in their search.

Most of the rooms had been abandoned at this point, but the smell still lingered. The smell of dried blood, sweat and other bodily fluids. It was obvious that the rooms had been cleaned at one point, but whoever cleaned it didn't put too much work in to it.

There was a room with the walls lined with bottles that contained different organs. There was another with a shiny metal table and sharp utensils sitting on a tray next to it. One other had shackles hanging from the ceiling, and blood still staining the walls and the floor.

After walking into the last room Minoru almost turned right back around but a voice in the back of his head told him to go in and check to room out further. He walked in to the room and stood in the center, trying to decipher what it was about the room that put him on edge. Despite the shackles on the wall, it was just a plain square room made out of cement blocks. It was cold, and smelled just like the other rooms, except-

He took a step closer to the shackles. The blood smelt fresh. It wasn't stale like in the other rooms. He reached his hand out to the wall and grazed it with his fingers, feeling the sticky wetness of the obviously fresh blood.

"Kukuku, little Minoru. I never expected to find you here."

Minoru whipped around to face the pale skinned man that he originally came to question.

"Orochimaru. Where are they?"

"Oh, my boy, I think you may have to be a little more specific than that." There was a twisted smirk that made its way across the snake man's face.

"Naruto and Momoko."

"Oh!" Orochimaru chuckled. "Why didn't you just say so?" there was a sing song lilt to his voice and it unnerved Minoru.

"What did you do with them?" Minoru reached to his weapons pouch.

"Well I would tell you, but I don't want to." The man stepped closer to him. "So why don't I just kill you instead?"

The snake sannin launched two kunai at Minoru, which the red head blocked with a kunai of his own, before firing of several shuriken and taking off to the right, trying to get around the man and out the door.

"Kukuku," the laugh echoed off the walls around Minoru, "You're going to have to try a lot harder if you want to fool me, Minoru-kun."

Minoru stopped in place his eyes wide as he saw Orochimaru's neck seemingly stretch out, and his jaw dislocate as it came racing towards him. He threw a kunai back at the incoming face of Orochimaru, but it did nothing to deter him, so he put his arms up across his face in an X shape hoping to at least be able to defend himself from whatever it was that the sannin was trying to do.

A moment passed and the attack never came. Minoru looked up and could only blink as he processed what he saw. In front of him, was the clone that he had created earlier, taking on the full brunt of the attack that Orochimaru had planned for him. It took him only a second though to take the opportunity to run as fast as he could.

The sannin's eyes were wide in anger as he saw what he had caught, and Minoru took this as the opportunity to run. Orochimaru spit the clone out, and roared in anger and ran after the red headed shinobi.

"Where is Jiraiya when you need him?!" Minoru mumbled under his breath as he continued to run through the halls.

Looking over his shoulder he saw the greasy haired man had started to run after him, and making six quick hand signs he turned around and called out a jutsu "Fire style: Pheonix Fire Jutsu!" balls of fire shot from his mouth flying back down the hall towards the sannin.

He took back off running down hall and grinned as he heard the hiss from the man, hoping that meant he had caught him with the technique.

"Don't get too confident with yourself!" He heard the man behind him shout. "Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"

Minoru threw himself down the nearest hallway, barely dodge the snakes that the man had summoned. "Why did it have to be snakes?" He mumbled to himself as he kept running, hoping that one of the hallways led him to either Jiraiya, or an exit.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

"No!" Minoru panicked to himself as he searched desperately for another hallway to throw himself down to keep himself out of the path of the jutsu.

With no luck though, he took the full brunt of the wind attack, with it throwing him further down the hall causing gashes to litter his body.

His body came to stop abruptly, slamming against a wall at the end of the hall.

Falling to the ground in a heap of limbs, he tried desperately to pull himself up to a standing position.

"How cute, kukuku," The snake summoner laughed. "Who would have thought that this is how it would end for you Mino-kun?"

Minoru glared at the pale man, bracing himself against the wall as he felt the entire building shake. "Whoever said it was going to end?"

"Awh, and you don't know how to quit. Just like your sister."

"And just like my sister, I won't let a monster like you destroy my village!"

"Too late, child. You can't stop me now. I have the perfect weapon, thanks to the Kyuubi brat and the Uchiha." The grin on Orochimaru's face gave him the chills, and his heart skipped a beat as he could only dread what the man meant.

"What do you mean?"

"I guess it won't matter if I tell you. Since you're going to be dead soon anyways." A pointed tongue slipped its way out of the snake summoners mouth, truly giving him the appearance of the animals that he summoned. "I was able to create an artificial jinchuriki. A little chakra from one demon, and a little of another, swirl it together, and all of a sudden, I have a brand-new demon just waiting for a host."

The shocked looked on Minoru's face must have pleased Orochimaru as he continued his explanation.

"I had to go through a few different hosts, and a lot of research, but it did prove to be most fruitful when I got a hold of the container and the whore. All it took was studying that blasted seal of the Yondaime, and a little research as to who the father of the child is to be able to create the perfect weapon to destroy Konoha!"

"I won't let you destroy my village!" Minoru shouted, the building shaking again as he got an idea. He put his hand out flat on the floor in front of him and channeled chakra to the ground, his eyes on the snakelike man as he walked towards him, jaw unhinging for a second time.

"Time to die, brat!"

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you!" Minoru pulled his hand up from the ground to reveal a fuin arrangement. "ACTIVATE!" The ground glowed a bright white colour, and Orochimaru put his hand up to shield his eyes as the seal grew brighter and brighter.

Minoru felt the building shake once more, walls falling to the ground around him, and he took a calming breath, ready to accept his coming death as his bomb seal was ready to blow, taking Orochimaru with him.

"Oh no you don't!" Minoru heard as a hand grabbed his collar and yanked him harshly backwards through gravel and rocks, causing further gashes to appear across his exposed skin. He finally came to a stop in time to hear the blast go off, the intense heat licking at his skin.

The loud blast disoriented, and deafened him as he tried to gain his bearings.

What seemed like hours passed before he was able to ascertain up from down and stand up to face the man who had saved him: Jiraiya.

The Sannin had a furious look across his face as he studied the younger man in front of him. "Are you crazy?" He asked the man before shaking his head. "Doesn't matter now. ANBU will be here any moment. Come-on. Let's go."

"Go? Where?" Minoru asked taking in the full view of the man. He had a small bundle in his hands, and another thrown over his shoulder. The bundle over his shoulder he could clearly see was a child, blonde hair poking out from the top of his head. "Is he alright? What about Momoko?"

"We don't have much time, come-on kid!" the older man had started moving towards the woods.

"No! Tell me, what happened to her!"

The Toad Sannin stopped and looked back at the red head. "She's dead."

Minoru felt his world crumble. He had grown up with Momoko. She had been on his team. She had so much life ahead of her. She-

"You can't think about that now, Minoru. You can grieve later. Now, hurry up and follow me." There was no questioning in his voice. Only a demand. "There's only going to be a brief time frame that we can get you out of the village without raising suspicion, and it has to be now."

Confusion was evident on his face, but he knew better than to question the sannin, so he followed, thoughts running rampant in his head.

The travel to the village wall was quick, and the two stopped atop when they decided the coast was clear. They looked back from the way they came and saw the flames licking the sky on the other side of the village from where Minoru had set is bomb seal off.

"He's not dead." Minoru stopped in his thoughts and looked back to the sannin.

"I blew a bomb up in his face, what do you mean he's not dead? Hell, I would have been dead if you didn't yank me out of there!"

"Orochimaru has been experimenting with things not of this world for years. And he has slithered his way out of messes way worse than that. That's why I need your help." Jiraiya looked down at Minoru and handed him the small bundle in his arms. "Protect her. He's going to come back for her."

"Her? What?" Confusion was evident on the man's face as he looked at the bundle. "We should stay here! It will be safer for her in a village with ninja!"

"You've seen what they have tried to do to young Naruto. If they find out what she is it will be ten times worse." A crestfallen look crossed his face.

"So, you know?"

"I saw the alter that she was on. I don't know what he sealed into her, but it was obvious that he was trying to create a weapon." There was a moment pause. "We don't have much time before they get back to their posts. You have to go now. Here are the coordinates for a safe house located just before the border. Go there and wait for me. It's laced enough with seals that the old snake won't be able to find it."

Minoru looked from Jiraiya to the east section of the village that was still on fire. "I'll be marked as a missing-nin. They'll come looking for me."

"Your re-inforced clone was caught in the blast. For all they know, you died in the fire. I'll make sure of it. They won't come after you. I'll meet you at the safe house with documents for you and the girl."

"What about Naruto?" He couldn't leave the blonde bundle of joy by himself.

"It would raise too much suspicion. You're going to have enough trouble with the girl." Jiraiya's answer was firm, leaving no room for questions.

Minoru looked at the bundle and noticed little wisps of silver hair curling at the top of her head.

"Shouldn't she go to her father?" Minoru at this point was trying to stall, or at least find a way out of this. He didn't know how to be a father; he was a ninja. "Or at least the clan?"

"You're Satsuki's father now." Jiraiya turned his back on the man. "The less the other party members know, the better. I'll meet you in three days there'll be supplies enough to last you." With that, Jiraiya took his leave and jumped off the wall towards the fires.

"So, you're Satsuki, huh?" Minoru sighed as he held the girl close to his chest as he jumped off the wall. He pumped some chakra to his feet to silence his landing, and then took off running as fast as he could towards the coordinates he was given.

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Kakashi was furious. He had come back from his almost year-long undercover mission to learn that his sensei's only child was kidnapped while he was gone. The child was safe, but that's not what bothered him. It bothered him that one of the sannin, one of the strongest shinobis that the village had ever produced had orchestrated the whole thing, and no one could ascertain for what gain it was.

The lair, so to speak, was engulfed in flames. There was no way for them to be able to find what the means to any of this was.

From the reports it took them hours to put out the flames, and even longer after that going through each room to try and find any salvageable items that could point to what he was doing down there.

It wasn't long into their search for clues, that they found the first body. Or what was left of it.

They had hoped that it would be the only one, but they were sadly mistaken. It had reached a staggering forty-five bodies that they had found. There was not much left of the bodies, most of them were just charred skeletons after the fire had broken out, but two of them had been on the outliers of the fire, and had just enough identifying markers left on them to be able to tell who they were.

They had held a mass funeral for the forty-three civilians that they had found, but they held a more secluded one for the two shinobi that were found.

The Hokage gave his eulogy of the two ninja and how they were dear comrades and they would do anything for the sake of the village. He explained how the two of the were the epitome of the will of fire, and how they will live on in each of their fellow shinobi for ever and always.

As the Hokage finished his words, he allowed each mourner in attendance to bring a flower up to pay their respects to the dead.

Kakashi held towards the back of the line, not wishing to bid more of his friends the final goodbye from this world, but knowing that it would be disrespectful to the dead if he just flat out refused to show up.

It slowly came to his turn, and he felt his breath hitch, and he looked at the picture of the smiling raven haired Momoko.

He took a deep breath and steeled himself. He was a Hatake, and Hatakes do not cry.

He bowed his head, saying a small prayer, and laid the flower down on the top of the casket, offering his condolences to Mikoto and Fugaku for losing a clan member.

Coming to the next casket, he could only look sadly upon the photo of the beaming red-headed Minoru. He had no-one to accept the condolences on behalf of his family, as his only living relative was a four-year-old who would not have understood what was going on. He was never super close with the man, but he was an excellent shinobi, and despite everything that had happened in both of their lives, Kakashi looked up to the man. Bowing his head again, he offered another short prayer before moving on and allowing the next mourners to show their respects.

The process took almost another full hour to get through the rest of the teary-eyed mourners, the two shinobi having worked with most of the ninja in the village at one point or another due to their specialties. Kakashi held back and watched as each ninja said their goodbyes, greatful that it had started raining, allowing the tears to slip down his face, blending in with the tears being shed from the sky.

Jiraiya was the final one to pay their respects to their fallen comrades. He had explained that he had gone with Minoru to the snake's hideout, and stated that he felt it was his fault that the two had died. If only he had been in the village days earlier, they could have kept a closer eye on Momoko and her unborn child. If only he had been within the village walls maybe his old teammate wouldn't have felt so bold as to rob not only Momoko of her life, but of the life of her child as well. Saying that if only he been in the village earlier, the red head wouldn't have had to go confront Orochimaru. If only he had paid closer attention to where the blooming seal master was, then maybe, just maybe he would have been able to get him out before Orochimaru activated a bomb tag setting the whole place up in flames to destroy the evidence that the two had found against him, linking him to the disappearances.

Water was streaming down his face, no one being able to tell if it was from the rain or his own tears as he laid his head a top of each casket, saying his final goodbyes. Everyone was so caught up in their own reminiscing that they didn't notice Jiraiya put his hands flat across the top of Minoru's coffin in a single seal and murmur 'Release'.

The sannin, stood back up to his full height a moment later and walked back to his seat, as the Hokage gave a few last words and the two coffins were lowered into their final resting place in the ground.

Kakashi Hatake was the first to rise from his seat, no longer able to bear the emotions that threatened to spill out from his already cracking mask. Taking one last look over his shoulder as the eternal beds of the two shinobi disappeared below the ground, he shook his head and disappeared in a small flurry of wet leaves, one final goodbye floating through the wind as he left in a shunshin.

"I sure am going to miss you guys. Momoko Uchiha, and Minoru Uzumaki."


	13. Chapter 13

I do not own Naruto.

Enjoy! :D

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It was dark and damp in the tunnels that worked their way underneath the ground in an endless maze meant to get anyone lost who had entered. It was here that the shadows of Konohagakure worked to uphold the peace of not only the village, but the land that hosted the village and its inhabitants. Here was where the silent protectors would train their skills, eat, sleep, and on occasion, socialize with others.

The silent protectors, the ANBU, treated each other as family, a dysfunctional family, but one none the less. Like every family, there were many different personalities that did not always mesh well with another, much like vinegar not mixing with water. It came as a part of the job though, inside the walls of the maze one learned who would be difficult to get along with on missions on the outside, so that even if you did not get along with one member, all had the same equal chance at getting home alive. Team missions were exactly that, working as a team to get the mission accomplished, and getting everyone home together.

It was in the hallowed halls of the maze where the men and women who risked their lives had the ability to take of the masks that made them invisible within their missions, the masks that gave them the anonymity that they needed to complete the truly dirty work that their missions required. Masks in these halls were stowed in pouches worn on belts, always within reach in case they were called out unexpectedly for missions.

It was through these halls that a young ANBU operative with mismatched eyes slowly trudged towards his assigned quarters, intent on getting some rest. Something that had been deprived of him for the last forty-eight hours. His mask had been discarded, most likely in the pouch attached to the waistband of his pants, giving all the full ability to view his face, or the portion that wasn't being covered by a black face mask. His mismatched eyes made it difficult to choose one eye to look at if you were to talk to the boy, but his demeanor was so cold, that it made most people try to shy away from him. Most.

"Hey, Inu~" A voice rang out in a singsong tone from somewhere high up in the tunnel like maze.

The boy instinctively reached his hand into his waistband pouch and quickly snaked out a knife, looking towards the source of the voice.

"I don't know who you think you're going to hit with that. Your hair is so long it's falling in your face." There was a small laugh. "Can you even see?"

Inu, scowled, or atleast one could presume he was with the way his eyes were narrowing. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sent the kunai flying through the air, growling as he heard it thunk against the ceiling.

"See kid?" Inu looked around with squinted eyes trying to pinpoint the voice as it had moved, and had yet to stop in just one location. "I'm right. You're going to need a haircut."

"I'm not in the mood for this, Panther." Inu spat, recognizing the voice of his taunter.

"I'm just doing this for your benefit." Panther's voice had moved again, causing the silver locks of the boy to flop as he turned quickly to face the new direction the man's voice had come from.

"My benefit?" there was an edge the warned of danger lacing the silver haired nin's voice. "I think it would be in _your_ benefit to stop this before you get more than you bargained for."

"I'm just trying to help you is all, boy." The man's voice disappeared as if it had been taken on the wind, and Inu took a deep breath to help relieve the annoyance flitting through his blood as he continued down the hallway.

He allowed the absence of sound to lull himself into a semi-relaxed state, his shoulders slowly dropping as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

A few minutes further down the hall, he couldn't help but stop as he saw a shadow race by him on his left-hand side. It was too quick for him to pinpoint what it was, but he had seen that it was low to the ground-an animal of some sort. Could have been just about anything. Many of the shinobi in these halls used summons of some sort, so it could have been anyone.

He shook his head hard; the lack of sleep was making him dwell on trivial things for far too long. He squeezed his eyes tightly, silently cursing Panther for showing up when he did, or he would have undoubtedly have been back to his quarters now.

Opening his eyes back up he cocked his head in silent curiosity as two eyes shown back in the dim light at him.

"You mind moving out of my way?" Inu mumbled stepping towards what he had deduced as a small animal that was blocking his way further.

The animal stayed put and what looked like a mischievous grin appeared across its jowl. The white of its teeth glistening in the limited light, revealing a set of pearly whites that the young operative could distinguish quite plainly as canine teeth.

The silver haired ANBU froze in place as he felt the hair on the back of his neck raise and cool metal find its way across the front of his throat.

"It would be a shame if someone else gave you a haircut, you know." The sing song voice of Panther was back, and the dog was padding towards the young boy. "They might take a little _too_ much off the top." Panther's voice was floating through the air, almost riding the wind, his breath tickling his captive's ears.

Inu had stood ramrod straight as he felt the knife bite into the skin, anger bubbling up underneath the surface as the canine finished his small track and sat down right in front of him, a menacing grin curling around its snout.

"We have far too few Hatake's in the world as it is, Kakashi, for us to go losing another one due to something as guileless as a haircut."

"You forget, that I am the _only_ Hatake left." Kakashi was seething. His anger threatening to bubble out of control, and he only had minimal desire to keep it in check at this moment.

"Oh." The word floated through the air as if it were a balloon that Panther had casually let go into the sky without a care in the world. "My bad." Panther's kunai dropped from Kakashi's neck as the man himself turned away as if he had no care in the world. "Still, I would recommend figuring something out about your hair. Come, Unmei."

There was a small bark from the animal sitting at Kakashi's feet and the dog stood up, bounding after Panther.

The duo had disappeared as quickly as Panther had appeared, leaving the young Hatake to stand alone in the hallway, his fists slowly clenching and unclenching as he tried to clear the anger from his mind. Anger made one sloppy, and a sloppy ANBU was a dead ANBU.

He had never seen the face of the Panther masked ANBU. In fact, no one had. He was the only member within the corps that was one hundred percent, truly unknown to all within the corps. According to the rumors, even the Hokage did not even know his true identity while he was not currently on missions.

The man's hair was as red as blood, and his eyes as green as perfect emeralds sparkling from behind the terror evoking mask of a panther. The porcelain white mask had three red streaks dragging from the menacing grin on the snout of the animal to resemble whiskers, and the eyes were slanted similar to those of Kakashi's own mask. Unmei, the young canine was always following around the unknown ninja, his fur black as night and his face expressing far too much delight at what his master was doing. Kakashi did not necessarily know what kind of dog Unmei was, as he did all that he could to stay away from the man and his canine, but he knew the dog would be big if his dinner plate sized paws that the dog had yet to grow into had anything to show for.

All in all, this was the extent of what, not only Kakashi, but the rest of the corps knew about Panther. The man had a tendency to keep to himself though, not fraternizing with anyone else unless it was absolutely necessary, and then he was the picture of professionalism. For some reason though, he liked to pick on Kakashi, and he always got a reaction from him, much to Kakashi's dismay.

Turning the handle of his living quarters, he pushed the door open and unceremoniously threw himself on his bed, leaving the door to slowly click back in place behind him.

Not even bothering with the sandals still on his feet he rolled over, bent on ridding his mind of everything that had occurred in the last forty-eight hours, (the last twenty minutes specifically), when he heard the tell-tale crunching sound of plastic.

Sitting up on the bed Kakashi reached his hand out and flicked the light on out of annoyance to find the source of the noise. Turning back and looking at the top of the bed sheets there was a folded piece of paper and a small plastic package containing what looked like red and white candies.

Reaching out and picking up the note, the young Hatake opened it up and looked at the loopy scrawl across the page and scowled as he read it. 'Seriously kid, you can't just sleep with the shoes on. You'll get trenchfoot. -Panther'

Kakashi crumpled the note in his hand and reached out to pick up the plastic packet. He brought them to his nose and took a small sniff only to violently yank the package away and throw it and the note across his small room, both items softly thudding against the wall only to fall in to a trashcan just below.

Peppermint. He hated peppermint almost as much as he hated Panther.

Kakashi kicked the sandals off of his feet, and turning the light to the small room he fell back on the bed willing himself to fall asleep, his last thoughts before succumbing to a well-deserved rest being: 'I _hate_ peppermint.'

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Hiruzen Sarutobi was not one to spin tales to his benefit. That being said, though, he was the God of Shinobi, the Professor, and he was not one to give out information needlessly where it could potentially endanger one, or more of his villagers.

It was for that reason that the wizened shinobi was sitting quietly behind his desk with his fingers laced under his chin while one Kakashi Hatake stared him down waiting for the answers to his questions.

He had thought that he had finally gathered all the answers after months of searching, months of digging. Yet here he was, and things were still being overturned, and the reason behind that was one small silverette hidden under the disguise of a red headed, violet eyed child, or if he were to be more exact: the one who had raised said child.

His thoughts drifted to the scroll that was tucked away in his desk, in a drawer with a false bottom that contained a single storage seal, keyed in such a way that only a hokage of Konohagakure would be able to open it.

That scroll had contained what he thought at one point, would be all the information that he needed to know about the child that had shown up in his village right under his nose, without his knowledge. Within the scroll was a birth certificate, a very good falsification, that had listed a 'Minoru Hayashi' and 'Miho Hayashi' as the parents of Kumo Hayashi. That being said, the reason for this scroll being under lock and key was not the falsified identification papers for the child, it was for the rather recognizable scrawl that was printed down the length of the scroll, and signed at the bottom of the birth certificates.

Minoru was skilled in fuinjutsu, so his handwriting was impeccable, it had to be or his work could quite literally blow up in his face. That skill was so ingrained in the man's head, that it bled over into his daily writing, the script being so gorgeous one would think that it was printed by a calligraphist. Even more so unique about the script was that there was a minute trace of chakra infused into each letter, the same amount in each letter in each word along the whole length of paper.

Hiruzen prided himself in being able to recognize each of his shinobi by chakra alone. When he had first sensed the chakra within the ink that dotted the page, he had thought it impossible. Couple that with some far-fetched story about how Minoru had somehow single-handedly escaped Orochimaru eight years ago, and _didn't_ end up interred six feet under (despite the body that Hiruzen vividly remembers putting into the coffin himself), and spent the last eight years living in Kirigakure where he raised a child that Orochimaru was apparently very intent on recovering.

It sounded implausible. Minoru was an amazing shinobi during his time within the forces, but it didn't make sense that he would be able to elude the snake sannin for so long if he truly was after the false red-head.

On the other hand, funijutsu specialists could manage just about anything. They could make the dead walk, and they could level entire cities with just a stroke of a brush, that's why the Uzumaki clan was targeted. One only needed the faintest amount of chakra to become lethal, making even the civilians a force to be reckoned with.

His thoughts drifting back to the scroll safely sealed away in the drawer of his desk, on the scroll hand delivered to him by the incognito child, and the one mark of proof that he needed that this was not just an elaborate scheme put through by another village in order to gain control of their jinchuriki. On the bottom right hand corner was a small seal. No bigger than the size of a thumbprint, was a swirling pattern that if one didn't know any better would think it was just a smudge of ink, where ink may have dropped from the tool that was being used to inscribe the letter.

In fact, had he not been Hokage while Minoru and Kushina where children, he may never have even noticed that it truly was a seal. It was nothing fancy, just a small communication seal that the two used often back in forth while one or the other were out on missions.

Being the last of their clan, they were always worried about the well-being of the other, so they had created a small seal that would tell the other that they were still alive if missions went wrong, or ran longer than originally intended. He had never learned how the two managed to transport them without getting intercepted, but Minoru was extremely adept at transportation seals, so one could only imagine what he had created to let their small communication continue back in forth.

Sarutobi himself had only seen this once or twice before, the strange seals showing up on mission reports, Minoru's seal showing up on a report of Kushina's and Kushina's showing up on one of Minoru's.

The encoding of the seal itself was so minute, and so tiny that it was nearly impossible to replicate. Years ago, he had even asked Jiraiya to try and copy the seal and he was even unable to recreate it stating that 'No-one shy of a natural born Uzumaki would be able to recreate that blasted seal. Ingenious really.'

He had done his research. He had checked every possible avenue about the child and Minoru, and he had thought that he had finally sorted everything out.

Who knew that one porcelain mask could throw a wrench in all that?

Kumo on that very first day had explained that her father had a nin-ken named Daisuke. It had come as a surprise as Minoru had not had nin-ken at all during his time in the force, but he had written it off as a need for extra protection for the child. He never thought that he could be connected with the ANBU operative that had been personally recommended to him by Jiraiya himself.

Panther had been skilled in assassination, able to hide in every shadow to a point where no Inuzuka could find him. He completed his missions perfectly, putting it first and foremost above anything else, earning him the ire of one Kakashi Hatake. Panther, would cut down a team-mate if it meant completing the mission and protecting the whole of Konoha, and while he never actually did, he made it quite clear that he had no problem downing team-mates if it would better protect the village.

It was a perfect cover though. Minoru was all about team-mates. So much so that he would put a mission in jeopardy to make sure that everyone came back home alive. Minoru had created a cover that was so cohesive, that no-one would ever be able to put two and two together and discover him as the Jonin that had perished in the fire several years before.

It was ingenious, straight down to the last mission that he had gone on. Not an official mission mind you.

Sarutobi remembered it as if it were yesterday. The red-headed man had come in to his office, his short hair shooting off in every direction possible, mask covering his visage as always. He had asked for a leave of absence, stating that he had received a lead from an informant from when he had worked as a spy for Jiraiya. He stated that he was informed some missing ninja were after a weapon that could bring forth the destruction of Konoha if it were to be obtained by the wrong people.

The elder Kage had granted the man his request. He had after-all been nothing but loyal over the last few years that he had been a part of the corps, and had done nothing to deserve the Hokage's suspicion.

That had happened the day before a silent alarm went off, alerting the military head of the village that some-one was within an apartment that had been sealed eight years ago. An apartment that was never meant to be touched again as no-one could break the seals on the apartment without destroying the building itself. Seals that were put in place by Minoru Uzumaki himself.

That was three months ago. In those three months, he had not heard head nor tails of Panther. He had assumed that the mean went deep undercover to find the weapon that could supposedly bring Konoha's destruction. It was all coming together as a well-formed plan. A plan that was so well thought out that it would make a Nara proud.

A plan so well thought out that it was giving him a headache just thinking of a way to explain this to Kakashi without giving out so much information that it would harm the young man in front of him. Kakashi had after all been quite fond of Minoru Uzumaki, and Sarutobi feared that this would be too much for the man to take in at once.

Gathering the facts, Sarutobi could deduce that Minoru had disappeared from the village on the night of the fire to raise a child. One that he could assume, was birthed by one Momoko Uchiha, the baby was presumed dead during the fire after all, as of the time that Momoko was kidnapped the baby had yet to be born. He had stayed away from the village raising said child in order to keep it safe from those wanting to abuse her power, a power that he had only assumed, taking in to consideration the seal on her stomach, was one that came from a rather large chakra being.

Within the succeeding years he had trained and adopted a personality where he could assimilate into the Konoha Black Ops with no-one learning of his secrets while still somehow keeping Satsuki safe, and keeping an eye on his nephew Naruto as each ANBU operative had to take turns on as they called it 'Naruto Watch'. Panther was oddly attached to that position, insisting on taking it whenever he wasn't out on assassination missions.

All in all, it all lead to the same solution: Minoru was Panther, and Panther was Minoru's way of making sure he knew that his nephew was being taken care of while simultaneously making sure that his immediate charge was not in any danger.

Sighing deeply, Hiruzen reached into a drawer and pulled out his pipe. Slowly putting tobacco into the bell of the pipe, he lit it with a small katon jutsu before taking a deep breath, blowing the smoke out in large billowing rings.

"Kakashi," the man breathed out, closing his eyes and looking every one of his many years. "That red-head, as you so eloquently put it, is Kumo Hayashi. A charge of Panther."

"Panther's charge. He had a child?" Kakashi asked incredulously, a lone eyebrow arching in disbelief.

"He raised a child, yes."

"I don't believe it." There was a small chuckle that escaped the Hatake's lips. "That someone as vile as him ended up with a child."

"Now, Kakashi-"

"And he turned the kid into a jinchuriki. How did he manage that?" The 'under your nose' went unsaid as Kakashi stared straight back at his Kage.

"We were aware that something was sealed within the girl but we were not aware of what it was." The Fire Shadow sighed. "This was the first time her chakra reacted that violently." If only they knew what Orochimaru had been up to when both Momoko and Naruto where kidnapped all those years ago, then they might have some sort of further insight to the girl.

"The chakra felt as if it were that of the Nine-tails, Hokage-sama. How do you explain that?"

"There are eight other chakra beasts out in the world. No hidden village would actively boast if they had lost their jinchuriki and the beast sealed within someone else. It would promote a weakness that no-one would want to have seen from outside of the village. It could very easily be one of the other eight beasts."

"And you're alright with secretly harbouring a jinchuriki that could belong to another village, sir?"

"Panther was a trusted operative. I fully trust that whatever that child holds is not directly related to something that he himself personally did."

"Sir, he would do anything if it benefited the village. I doubt turning a child into a jinchuriki is something that would be beyond _that_ man." Kakashi's scorn for the operative known as Panther was becoming very apparent.

"Kakashi, mind your tongue." The Hokage scolded, his eyes narrowing. "I trust Panther and the decisions that he made for this village. I do know that the man would never willingly harm a child in ANY manner."

The silver haired shinobi's shoulders slumped in slight defeat as he stared lazily back at his superior. "The child shouldn't be trusted until it's discovered what beast she contains."

"And that decision isn't yours to have. I have already made my decision on the girl, and she is to be trusted. She has done no wrong to this village, and has even helped to weed out a traitor. For that alone we are in her debt. You of all people, Kakashi, should know better than to judge a child for the actions of a parent."

At that remark Kakashi leveled a glare that would have made a lesser man quake in fear.

"I believe, that does sufficiently answer your question about who Kumo is, and what she had to do with Panther." There was a small pause as Sarutobi stared straight out at Kakashi. "Now, is there anything further that you would like to ask?"

Kakashi stood for a moment, almost wanting to challenge the Hokage, as he had further questions he wanted answered, but he knew better than to push his luck. Taking a small breath, he reached his hand up to his head and scratched at his hair before answering. "Maaa, that will do I suppose. Thank you Hokage-sama."

"That's what I thought. You're dismissed."

Kakashi gave a small bow, a frown present across his one visible eye as he shunshined out of the room, a small whirlwind of leaves marking the place he once stood.

Hiruzen Sarutobi gave an audible sigh as he pulled several manila envelopes from within his desk.

"That went spectacularly." The Hokage grumbled as he pulled a stack of envelopes from within his desk and opened them, spreading the contents across the top of his desk.

He had been hoping to put Satsuki on the same team as Naruto. They had already proved that they work well together, but it was painfully obvious that if she was put on a team with Kakashi as the leader, that her growth would be severally handicapped with the obvious dislike that the man held for her caretaker.

Kakashi was the perfect choice afterall. With the Sharingan, he would be able to assist in keeping the girl under control should anything happen in regards to the beast within her, and as a shinobi he was an impeccable tracker and he had specialized in assassination as well, something that Kumo was proving that she would be fantastic at, if her skills at detecting his hidden ANBU was anything to go by.

Well, at least he still had a few days to rearrange the teams.

13131313131313131313131313131313131313

The sun had already long set by the time Daisuke had returned with Satsuki draped across his broad shoulders, the girl having passed out from some sort of exhaustion.

Naruto, upon seeing the duo re-enter the house jumped to help the canine with the small girl, and grabbed her small frame off of Daisuke and carried the girl to her bedroom at the end of the hall. Laying his pseudo little sister on the bed, he pulled the lime green covers up to her shoulders before walking back down the hallway just in time to see Daisuke readying himself to sit down on Minoru's chest.

"Hey, Daisuke!" Naruto hissed running to where the man had still laid in the yard. He was too heavy for Naruto to move himself, but he had succeeded in rolling the man over to his back while the canine was out on his search. "I don't think you should do that!"

Daisuke let out something that sound uncharacteristically like a snort, before turning in a small circle and setting his rear-end down just above the man's knees.

"Seriously, Daisuke! He's sick!"

"The man's fine." A low baritone voice sounded as Daisuke lowered himself down to be lying across the man's chest, his snout inches away from his owner's face.

"Did you just-?" Naruto's question died on his lips as Daisuke started to lick Minoru's face, and the blonde boy opted to giggle as his father figure started to cough, grasping at the weight sitting on top of him.

"Get off. Of me. You fat lard," Minoru wheezed, as he turned on his side, dumping the Great Dane unceremoniously on to the ground. "Did you find her?"

"What kind of pup do you take me for?" The deep baritone voice rang again. "Kid's in her room. Passed out from exhaustion, but fine."

"Good." Minoru slowly sat up, rubbing messaging his chest, just above his heart. "That was nasty stuff. Hate to be the shinobi to get on her bad side." He let out a slightly pained chuckle as he slowly got to his feet.

"Your dog-" Naruto slowly breathed out lifting a shaking hand up and pointing to Daisuke. "He just talked!"

"Oh no, Naruto," whispered, his eyes going wide. "You're still here-"

"Well yea, I'm still here! You were knocked out by that flower," Naruto scoffed "And Daisuke," Naruto shot a questioning look at the dog, "Was out looking for Satsuki. So, no one to get me home." The blond crossed his arms across his chest, his voice rising "What happened anyways. What was that?"

"Please," Minoru was whispering, his pointer finger placed in front of his lips. "Keep your voice down, I don't want her to be woken."

"Is it like a bloodline? Can you do that? Why did you pass out? Why-?" Naruto's voice kept rising in volume until Minoru placed his hand across the boy's mouth.

"Naruto Uzumaki!" Minoru hissed, causing Naruto to instantly freeze, his eyes wide. "I know you have questions, but they can't be answered here. Our priority, first and foremost, is getting you back within proximity of Konoha. The shadow clone dispersed far too long ago for my liking."

"The what?" Confusion mixed with concern crossed Naruto's eyes as he cocked his head to the side and looked at his father-figure.

"I'll explain in a minute, but we have to get on our way, before anyone notices." Minoru removed his hand, and nodded his head towards the door.

"What about Satsuki?" Naruto asked, looking down the hallways where the small girl was sleeping.

"She'll be fine, Daisuke will stay behind." His tone went back to nonchalance as he reached his hand into a jar and pulled out two sticks of peppermint. "Here, want some candy?"

"One moment you're freaking out, and the next you're offering me candy." Naruto raised an eyebrow at the silver haired man, before reaching a hand out and taking the pro-offered sweet. "I don't think I will ever understand you." He popped the candy stick in his mouth before making a funny face. "Peppermints?"

"Everything I do-"

"You do for a reason. Yeah, I know." Naruto grumbled as Minoru shoved a hat on his head.

"Look here," Minoru said as he grabbed something off of a shelf by the door.

Crystal blue eyes met charcoal black eyes as Minoru opened a small jar and wiped his fingers across the mixture held within.

"You're going to have to follow my lead more so tonight than normal." He said as he smeared a cold cream across Naruto's cheeks, covering the whisker marks etched on each side. "Because of the time of day and how long ago the clone dispersed, I have to take you to a different jump point, so I have to take you in to town in order to do so." Minoru paused for a moment to make sure that Naruto understood the situation. "I'm going to need you to leave your jacket here, the orange will stick out a little too much in this village, and I don't want someone to realize who you are. Can you do that for me?"

There was a long pause as Naruto debated on the answer that he was going to give. The man had never steered him wrong up to this point, and had always had his best interest at heart. He had even made sure that he was getting good grades in the academy to the point were he was no longer failing. He had been able to trust the man with everything else, so Naruto supposed, that he could trust him on this matter too.

Nodding his head, Naruto slipped his arms out of the sleeves of his trademark orange jacket, and handed it over to the adult.

Minoru smiled at the young boy and slowly stood to put the jacket on a hook by the door. "I'll either drop it by your house within the next couple of days while I'm on my way to work, or you can pick it up next Tuesday. Whichever comes first. Agreed?" There was a small nod from Naruto, and Minoru reached to grab another garment from the hooks. "Until then, you can take this with you." He passed the piece of clothing to Naruto as he grabbed his own haori to put on.

He laughed as the boy made a small huffing noise as he put on the almost completely all black jacket.

"It could do with a bit more colour, but I guess it will do." Naruto stuck his tongue out as he pulled the jacket on and zipped it up half way.

"I think you look like a proper shinobi," Minoru beamed. "Do you have everything? Shoes? Backpack? Homework?" After received a nod to each question, Minoru nodded his head, and tied a bandana over his hair. Sticking the peppermint stick in his mouth (and an extra one in his pocket that Naruto was sure Minoru was trying to be sneaky about), he opened the door and stuck his hand out for Naruto to grab.

"I'm not a child, I can walk by myself." The boy huffed, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"I know you're not." Minoru laughed, "Daisuke, I'll be back!" He shouted behind him before grabbing Naruto around the waist, and hoisting him up on to his back. "It's more for ease of travel is all. You are a little heavier than Satsuki is though…" Minoru teased as he quickly traveled down the street ducking in and out of the shadows as they were available.

"Hey Mino-"

"Not quite Naru," Minoru was quick to cut Naruto off, "We're almost at the jump point, there are too many prying ears here." Naruto couldn't see Minoru's face from his point on the man's back, but there was a cheeriness in his voice that confused Naruto. It was almost as if the man was smiling, almost as if he was trying to make others think that they were just a father-son duo on their way home for the evening.

Naruto sighed, and loosely clasped his hands in front of Minoru's neck, lying his head down on the man's shoulder, watching as the buildings quickly passed by.

The buildings were tall, almost reaching the sky, but they were quick to thin out, making way to shrubbery and trees that would jut out from random cracks in the pavement, before everything opened up to a small park at the edge of town.

"Hold on Naru!"

Naruto laid his chin flat on top of Minoru's shoulder and clasped his hands tightly together as the drew closer to a tree towards the back of the park. He could feel the man's arms moving, and could hear him chant the names of different seals, matching the tempo that his arms were moving. They may be in a different location, but the seals that he was chanting were the same as always.

Naruto tensed his muscles as Minoru kept running closer and closer to the tree, showing no signs of stopping.

"Mino-chan! You're going to crash!" Naruto shouted squeezing his eyes shut tightly bracing for impact.

"I'm sorry, we're going to wait?"

Naruto slowly cracked open an eye to see that the tree was no longer in front of him. Well, not the tree that they were going to crash in to specifically, but rather there were thousands of trees around them, almost like they were in a forest.

The blonde scrambled to climb down from the older man's shoulders looking around at everything as if it was his first time ever seeing a forest.

"But how did you do that? There was no door!" Naruto stopped and stared up at Minoru, his eyes comically large.

"Do you remember me ever telling you that there had to be a door?" Minoru raised an eyebrow a small smirk on his face, revealing his pearly white teeth.

"But-" Minoru reached his hand down and plucked the black beanie off of Naruto's blonde locks and sufficiently cut the child off rubbing the piece of clothing across the boys' face allowing the small whiskers to reappear. Putting the now dirty black beanie in a hidden pocket, the silver colour drained out of Minoru's hair leaving a bright blood red in its place, and the charcoal black eyes faded to an emerald green.

"I know you have questions. This is the time to ask them." Minoru started walking forward gesturing for the small boy to follow after him.

"Where are we?"

"About two miles out from Konoha. We should have plenty of time."

There was a small pause as Naruto tried to gather his thoughts. He had so many questions, but where to start?

The two walked in a comfortable silence until Naruto finally decided on where to start with his interrogation.

"What was that Satsuki did?"

"Honestly, no idea. It was the first time it happened. I can only assume it was a 'fail-safe' to keep her safe."

Naruto was silent for a moment. Despite the appearance he kept at school, he was no idiot. In fact, he remembered most things that he had ever read, that including the definition for the word fail-safe. The definition he had read was: 'In engineering, a _**fail**_ - _ **safe**_ is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause no or minimal harm to other equipment, the environment or to people.'

"What do you mean fail-safe? Is it a bloodline?"

"Not in the sense that you know a bloodline," Minoru said as they finished picking their way through the brush to a well beaten path that lead back to the village. "This wouldn't have been something that she was born with."

"What do you mean? You can't just implant a bloodline in to someone, so what is it?"

"Naruto, do you remember our conversation about seals with Satsuki when you came over to the house the first time?"

"Well yeah, but what does that have to do with any of this?" Naruto was confused by the seemingly strange switch of topics.

"Do you remember what kind of items can we seal within a seal?

"Just about anything, right?"

"Correct. Now, within what objects can we seal items into?"

"Paper, steal, wood, dirt. Just about any sturdy surface." Naruto was growing confused within the topic, but knew better than to question Minoru while he was in his so called 'teacher mode'.

"Now," There was a long pause, one that caused the air to become heavy, almost as if this was something that Minoru didn't want to talk about. "Can you seal items within people?"

"I'm sure it's possible, but why would you ever want to do that? What goal would that achieve?" Naruto had his hands behind his head and as he walked forward, he was leaned backwards to look at the stars peeking through the trees.

"What do you remember about the Tailed Beasts?"

"They're beings made of pure chakra that were created by the Rikkudo Sennin."

"How do you kill Chakra?"

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks, his arms dropping to his sides as he turned to stare at Minoru.

"How do you kill pure chakra?" He repeated, not looking Naruto in the eyes.

"You-" There was a long pause as Naruto's thoughts ran rampant, before everything came colliding to a massive stop. "Don't."

"Correct." There was a sad tone to Minoru's voice.

"But, the Yondaime, killed the Kyuubi. Didn't he?" Minoru watched as emotions flashed across Naruto's face. "But you can't kill Chakra…" Naruto gathered light blue coloured chakra in his right hand, taking his left to try and poke the gathered chakra. Realizing that his hand was just passing through the gathered energy he slowly let it disperse in to the air. "If you can't kill the beasts, then what did he do to it?!"

"Fuinjutsu is a marvelous skill. It can create mountains and level cities. It was a marvelous skill that led to the defeat of the Uzumaki clan. They could literally create anything out of nothing. They could do the impossible. Including seals that could hold not only objects, but beings made out of complete chakra."

"Including the nine tailed beasts." Naruto breathed out his eyes wide. "And that's what the Yondaime, did? He sealed the Kyuubi into something?"

"Not just something, Naruto-kun, someone." Minoru kneeled down in front of the blonde, and put his hand on his shoulder.

Naruto slowly looked up into the green eyes of his Mino-chan, while his thoughts ran through everything he had ever learned in the academy, every interaction he had ever had with a villager.

"He didn't seal it, within me, did he?"

There was a small pause as Minoru reached his hand up and cupped the side of Naruto's face.

"He did. He wanted you to be a hero. He knew you would be strong enough for this burden." Minoru pulled Naruto in and give him a big hug. "And you are a hero, a strong one at that. Don't forget that."

"Why don't the villagers see that then?" Minoru could feel Naruto's body shaking, giving away that the boy was trying to stifle tears.

"Because they don't know what we know about fuinjutsu." Minoru pulled Naruto away from him so that they could look each other in the eye. "You are not what you hold within you. Remember that. When you put ramen in a bowl, does the bowl become the ramen?"

"No…."

"Correct. If you put anpan in a box, does the box become the anpan?"

"No…."

"Correct. And if you put peppermint sticks in a jar, does the jar become peppermint sticks?"

"Are you hungry or something Mino-chan?" Naruto laughed through his sniffles.

"I'm just trying to get the point across, Naru-kun," Minoru laughed. "You are not what you hold within you. You're just the bowl holding back the ramen. The Fourth used a seal that was created by the Uzumaki. A seal that he modified himself, so that no matter what happened, the beast would only be released if you died. Something that will not happen for a very long time."

"Then, if he sealed the nine-tails within me, what does any of this have to do with Satsuki?"

"Before Satsuki was born, she was kidnapped." Minoru stood up, and once again started walking towards the village. "She was kidnapped by an evil man, who wanted power all for himself. And in order to do that, he kidnapped two very important people."

"Who did he kidnap?"

"He kidnapped Satsuki's mother, and you." There was a small pause before Minoru continued. "He wanted to harness the power of the tailed beasts and use that power for his own malicious gain. But he didn't want the power of just one tailed beast. He wanted to create one that had never been seen before. One with powers unknown to mankind, that could help him with his goals of bringing the Hidden Leaf to its knees, and then to its own grave."

There was a heaviness in the air that made even the talkative Naruto stay quiet as the trudged along the path to the village.

"He had been at this for years, from what I have been able to learn. He had been waiting for the perfect container to seal his creation within. He had taken energy from multiple demons and had somehow managed to fuse the chakra together to create a new tailed beast. One that would eventually hold the similar personalities to the original beasts that the chakra was taken from. He found that perfect container within Satsuki, kidnapping her before her birth, as to make sure that the moment she first took a breath of air, he would be able to seal the creature inside of her, making her a living sacrifice, a Jinchuriki, just like you."

The silence continued to hang in the air as Naruto held on to every word that Minoru was saying.

"That man did succeed in creating something that had never been seen before, so I don't know what to expect when it comes to Satsuki. I can only imagine that the swirl of flowers that she disappeared in was due to the tailed beasts within her, acting because they thought that Satsuki would be killed, and because as much as they hate humans, they hate dying worse."

"Is the chakra from the nine-tails part of the reason that she's like me?" Naruto asked in a hushed voice.

"It is," Minoru responded after a small pause. "But it is also because of you that she stays safe."

Naruto looked up to Minoru with questioning eyes.

"There is a seal that lies in a circular pattern around your navel." Minoru paused as he waited for a nod of understanding. "That seal is what holds the Nine-tails in place. Now when the evil man kidnapped you to take the chakra of the Nine-tails, he first only took a small portion. A portion that would grow within Satsuki as she grew, but small none-the-less. Second, he mimicked the seal that holds the nine-tails within you as a modified one that holds the beast within Satsuki, a seal that as I said earlier was created by the Uzumaki-seal masters. If it wasn't for that seal, that that man copied when he kidnapped you, I am almost certain that Satsuki wouldn't be alive today. She would have died within hours of having that creature sealed within her."

"So, I saved her?"

"You did. And as her pseudo-big brother, I'm sure you will continue to do just that." Minoru smiled down at Naruto.

"But the seal. You said it was modified. Does that mean it's not as strong as the one that I have?" Naruto asked, worry evident on his face.

"Don't worry, I added an extra layer on to her seal. It functions almost as if a natural born Uzumaki was the one to place the original seal on her now."

Naruto left out an audible sigh as relief rushed over him, and the two walked in silence for a few minutes longer until another question popped in to his head.

"Minoru. You mentioned Satsuki's mom, but you never mentioned her dad."

"What are you talking about, I am her dad." There was a chuckle that left Minoru's lips, and had Naruto not grown up hearing the fake laughs of the villagers, he would have scratched at the back of his head and let out his own sheepish laugh of embarrassment.

"You're raising her. So, in that sense, yes, you are her dad." Naruto answered nonchalantly; his hands stuffed in his pockets. "You wear a henge while you're at home so that you look like her, and whenever you come to pick me up within the village, this is how you look: bright red hair and green eyes, which matches Satsuki's favourite henge. I may not be as good as a sensor as what Satsuki is/will be, but I know for a fact that you're not wearing a henge right now."

Minoru let out a small sigh, one that made it seem as if ten years of life were added on to him. "You're too smart for your own good. You know that kid?"

"You taught me almost everything I know," Naruto shrugged. "That's how I know you're also a ninja, despite what you say in front of Satsuki. She doesn't see ninja on a daily basis like I do, but I know you're a ninja. The way you carry yourself. The way you're constantly keeping an eye on our surroundings, it all screams ninja. Not to mention, there is one red-headed ANBU who is constantly making sure that I am staying out of trouble." There was a small pause as Naruto eyed the older redhead. "Do you know who her birth father is?"

There was a long pause before anything was said.

"I have always liked the bingo book for a bit of light reading."

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks at the once again topic change. "The what?"

"Halt-state your name and purpose!"

"Ah! ANBU-san!" There was a cheery tone laced in Minoru's voice and it caught Naruto off guard as he turned to look at the dog-masked ANBU that had seemingly appeared out of no-where. "How are you doing this fine evening?"

"State your name and purpose." Minoru's question went unanswered but it didn't seem to bother the red head.

"Well, I am Minoru Hayashi, and this is young Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto felt a large hand being laid on his shoulder as he looked on at the ANBU with silver gravity defying hair. "I was on a walk this evening when I found young Naruto lost in the forest. I thought I would help him find his way back to the gates."

The ANBU walked straight up to Minoru, his back straight and his arm ready to go towards a weapons pouch. "Present your identification papers."

"Of course, ANBU-San." Minoru dug through his pockets, and Naruto felt his stomach clenching. What would the ANBU do when Minoru's paper showed that he actually lived in Kirigakure?

Naruto watched closely as Minoru pulled out a small booklet out from within his Hakama pants and presented the booklet to the young ANBU.

The ANBU flicked the book open, and Naruto couldn't help but look on in awe as he saw the Konohagakure symbol etched on the front of the booklet, with a spiral he had learned as belonging to the Uzumaki clan placed on the bottom right hand corner of the front of the booklet, in faded black ink.

"Says here you have a daughter. Where is she?" The ANBU's voice was quiet as he asked, folding the book back and handing it to Minoru.

"Back at home, sleeping. It's way past her bed time after all!" Once again, the smile was plastered across Minoru's face as he started to babble on about Satsuki, without naming her at all within the conversation. "I will have to get back to her soon though, so I would like to finish making sure that young Naruto gets home alright."

"Oh no, Hayashi-san," Naruto spoke up, a formal, apologetic tone in his voice. "I could not possible be any more of a burden to you. You have been so nice after all to bring me this far. If ANBU-san is here, that must mean that we are close enough to the village." Naruto bore a sheepish look on his face as he rubbed at the back of his head. "It is my fault after all, I should have known better than sneaking past the guards to go explore the forest without an adult."

"Mmmmm, sounds like your lesson has been learned, huh?" Minoru hummed as he reached his hand into a hidden pocket and pulled out several peppermint sticks. "Peppermint stick, ANBU-san?"

Naruto watching the interaction unfold, had he not known better would have said he heard the ANBU make a noise of disgust under his mask before gruffly denying said candy.

"Make sure the boy gets straight home. He's caused a great deal of worry with the Hokage for going missing for so long." The ANBU turned on the spot and disappeared in a swirl of leaves leaving the duo alone on the forest trail.

"See, I'm not the only one who doesn't care for your weird candy!" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Minoru as the elder of the two led them further down the path.

Minoru just hummed as the two walked up to the large imposing gates of the village of Konohagakure and Naruto let out a small whistle, taking in the view of the gates from the outside for the first time.

"It's pretty impressive isn't it?" Minoru let out a small chuckle as he led them over to the guard post to show his identification papers.

After a few moments with the two guards Izumo and Kotetsu, the two continued on their way, Minoru plucking Naruto up from the ground and putting him on his back.

"Now, I know you have more questions. And there are not further answers that I can give right now." Minoru whispered. "Just remember that I do what I do because it is necessary. Because your safety is necessary, and because the safety of Satsuki is necessary. Do you understand that?" Minoru paused until he heard a small 'yessir' from Naruto. "You and Satsuki will run into many troubles throughout your lives because of what you hold within yourselves, and I do what I do so that you will experience as few of those things as possible until you are strong enough to face them on your own. I will protect you both with my life. That is how much I love and respect you both. You both are my families in different meanings of the word, but that does not mean that I love either of you any less than if you were my own flesh and blood, and for that I need you to trust me. Can you do that Naruto?"

There was a moment of silence as Minoru carried Naruto up the stairs to his small apartment, and set the boy down on the ground in front of the door.

Naruto looked up at his mentor and azure eyes met emerald eyes as a determined grin spread across Naruto's face. "Believe it! I'm going to get strong to protect the both of you, Mino-chan!"

"I have no doubt that you will Naru-kun. Now I hope this goes without saying, that this will be our secret for now, no?"

A pained look spread across his face. Naruto didn't care for lying to his precious people, and Satsuki was definitely one of his most precious people. Letting out a small sigh, he nodded his head, "If it is necessary."

"I promise, I wouldn't ask you to do it if it wasn't." Minoru reached out and ruffled the young boys' hair. "How about next week we stumble across a clone jutsu that you can actually use to pass the exam?"

"Yeah!" A grin erupted across Naruto's face, and he didn't notice a book being surreptitiously slipped into his backpack as Minoru laughed and slowly pushed the boy into the house, closing and locking the door between them as he headed back the way he came to exit the village without raising to much further suspicion.

1313131313131313131313131313131313

Naruto looked down on Kumo who had fallen asleep on his lap, the blood red hair from her henge piled under her head in a sort of makeshift pillow.

He had a feeling, ever since that Satsuki had shown up in the village under her henge as Kumo, that something bad would happen, he had just hoped that the feeling that he had deep down in the pit of his stomach was wrong, and that his pseudo tou-san would show back up to take the both of them under his wing again.

Reaching his hand into a pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a small book and cracked it open. He hadn't realized the day it happened, but that day, so many months ago when they had to take the long way home Minoru had slipped a Bingo Book into his backpack.

It was a well-worn book, one that had been owned by someone else before it had come to his possession, but it did hold a ton of information, as well as faces that Naruto could see as very familiar. Familiar not because he had seen the people listed in the books, but familiar as in he had seen people his own age that closely resembled those listed within.

He could easily pick out Shikamaru's father listed within the book. It was an old photo, the man had yet to receive the scars that currently mar his face. He recognized the face of Chouji Akimichi's father: Chouza, the swirl markings on the man's cheeks matching those of his sons. The Yondaime himself was listed in the book, his given name of Minato Namikaze 'The Yellow Flash' being listed with a rather high bounty listed under his name. He had a bright red stamp of 'Deceased' across his face. There was a blonde within the book that Naruto vaguely recognized as the owner of the flower shop across town. His name giving away that he was related somehow to Ino, the noisy blonde who liked to yell at him.

There were two people within the books that shared the same last name as him, and it always made him smile. Looking at the smiling face of the first, he couldn't help but feel a sort of joy. It was a woman with long blood red hair and violet, almost matching exactly the description that had helped transform Satsuki to Kumo, her name was Uzumaki Kushina 'The Red-Hot Habanero'. She just like the Yellow Flash, had a hefty bounty on her head, but had those big red letters stamped over her face listing her as deceased.

The second was a young man by the name of Uzumaki Minoru with bright red hair just as Kushina had. His hair, Naruto was sure, would have been just as long as Kumo's is both in and out of her henge as he could plainly see in the photo was being held back in a low ponytail of sorts. The man had bright emerald green eyes and a wide smile across his face showing off a toothy grin. He did not have as hefty of a bounty on his head as Kushina did, but he too had those big red letters marking him as deceased stamped across the photo.

On all three of the 'deceased' photos there was a date lasted as the date of death, listing them all between eight and twelve years ago. Looking at the first two, he could agree that they must have died around the time he had been born, but the last one, he could say with great accuracy, had the wrong date of death listed.

The red-head man was listed as having died eight, almost nine years ago, but Naruto could say without hesitation, that he had just seen the man not even four months ago. He went by a different surname, but Uzumaki Minoru had taught both him and Satsuki, almost everything they knew. He had kept many secrets from the both of them, secrets that he probably had every intention of no-one ever finding out, one of them being Satsuki's true father, and Naruto was sure that he managed to take _most_ of them to the grave.

That being said, there was one secret that Naruto was fairly certain that he had uncovered with the 'light' reading he had successfully completed while looking through the bingo book that was gifted to him.

Naruto was certain that if he had managed to figure out this secret, that the Hokage would have learned it too, but as they had been yet to be approached by the man, he must have decided to keep that information to himself as well.

Kumo made a small noise in her sleep, causing Naruto to look down at his sleeping sister just in time to see the red colouring slowly drip from her hair, leaving her hair the pale silver colour it naturally was. He carefully wrestled the girl's hood from under her head and pulled it up over her head, making sure to hide the silver locks within the hood so that no-one else would see should they enter the empty waiting room.

He had studied the bingo book almost nightly at one point. Taking in every little detail of every ninja listed within the book, trying to see if he could find people he knew, or people that he knew of. He had done this so often though, that similarities soon became very easy to pick out. Like how a child may share the same face shape as a mother, or how they may share the same hair and eye colouring as a father.

In fact, he had noticed that rather quickly about how he shared those similarities with the Yondaime Hokage, and Uzumaki Kushina. He had asked Minoru about it once before, and the man just said something along the lines of 'Maa, what a strange coincidence.'

Naruto had also noticed the similarities that Satsuki had shared with one particular person listed within the book. They had the same oval face, same hair colour, and same eye shape, all in all she truly looked like a female version of the man listed in the book.

Naruto closed the book and slipped it back into his pocket, as a door swung open to reveal Tsume Inuzuka.

He wasn't sure what the future would hold from here one out, but he knew that he and Satsuki would have to come up with some sort of more permanent solution to her current disguise. It did fine while she was in the academy, but now that she was a genin, they would have to make sure that no-one found out who she truly was, and a henge that could be undone by someone able to detect genjutsu or with the right bloodline would not be useful to them

He had made a vow to protect both Minoru and Satsuki. He wasn't able to protect Minoru, but he would protect Kumo with his life because he knew. Naruto knew that she would be in danger once the world found out, so it was up to him to keep her safe, just like Minoru was, until she could protect herself. It would be his job because he knew.

Because he knew the truth.

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"So, it sounds like Orochimaru had paid the girl a visit." A voice graveled out. "And she now has a little dislike of snakes."

"You are correct sir."

"And her chakra had an interesting reaction with the Uzumaki boys'?"

"Yessir, the boy managed to get the girl's chakra under control just by grabbing her hand.

"How interesting." A mischievous scowl worked its way across the man's face. "Keep looking for information. I want to find out _everything_ about her. Dismissed."

A figure dressed completely in black save for a blank porcelain mask nodded as it disappeared into thin air, not leaving any indication that it had just been in the small dark office.

"You can try, but you can't keep everything from me Hiruzen."


End file.
